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The Fflaking of a 
Successful 'SK^-ife 


Tetters of a Father to His 
Daughter . 


Casfer S. Yost, 

» I 

Author of ‘ ‘The JVlaking of a Successful Husband” 



G. VY. Dillingham Company 
Publishers Flew York 










LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies; Received 

OCT 21 1907 

Conyrufftt tntrj 

debt *-,/<* 07 

CLASS A AXc. No. 

l&qvof 

COPY A. 


HQm 

■h 


COPYRIGHT. 1906, 1907, BY 

C. S. Yost 

COPYRIGHT. 1907. BY 

G. W r . Dillingham Company 

Issued September, 1907 


The staking of a 
Successful Wife 






Affectionately Dedicated 
the JVlost Success ful XC^ife I Know— 
My Own . 




CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. Pafia’s Consent . . . ~ 7 

II. Starting Right . . . 31 

III. The JVIanagement of a Xian 51 

IV. Spending and Saving . . 69 

V. Jylending Family Jars . . 90 

VI. JVlan s Faults and Failings . 107 

VII. Keeping ufi With the Social 

Procession . . . 123 

VIII. When His Ma Comes to Visit 140 

IX. The First Baly . .157 

X. Raising a Family . . .173 



T 


'he JVlalzing of a 

Successful XXife 


I 


Pafia’s Consent 


M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRL:—I 
am simply consumed with as¬ 
tonishment. The idea of my 
daughter, my little sweetheart, thinking 
of marriage, comes to me like a blow 
from a piledriver, and you know, my 
dear, that piledrivers hit a pretty hard 
lick, especially when you aren’t looking. 
I’m away from home so much that it’s 
mighty hard to realize that you are not 
my baby any more, that it is no longer 


7 





T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


proper nor dignified to dandle you on my 
knee—not for me, at least; that your 
dresses have lengthened downward until 
they curl around your , dainty ankles, and 
the golden hair that used to hang down 
your back like a streak of woven sunshine 
is now done up in a fashionable some- 
thing-or-other on top of your head. I 
forget that you are a young lady, a 
graduate from a swell seminary, can ham¬ 
mer the piano to make a Paderewski (I’m 
not sure whether I spell that right or not) 
sit up and take notice; can embroider 
dinky little flowers so faithfully that the 
honey-bees come into the windows to suck 
the corner drugstore perfume from their 
silken centers; can quote Virgil and Ten- 
8 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

nyson and Browning and other people 
that I don’t understand and don’t care to, 
but am mighty proud that you do; can 
write and read such erudite papers on the 
whitherness of the wherefore at the wom¬ 
en’s club that all the hearers, I am told, 
are filled with wonder that so much 
knowledge could be brought together un¬ 
der such a pretty hat. In short, my dear, 
I forget that my daughter as an up-to- 
date young lady is strictly It. 

I don’t want you to think I love you 
any the less because you have grown 
away from the child of my dreams. It 
is only that time gets such an everlasting 
hump on itself that your old daddy can’t 
keep up with it, and whed those rare and 
9 





T he makinq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


fleeting moments of homecoming bliss 
are granted to me I often have to rub my 
eyes two or three times before I can be 
sure the change in you is real. La me, 
child, it seems only yesterday that I was 
reading you fairy stories from a yellow- 
covered linen book and showing you how 
A was differentiated from B by certain 
peculiarities of architecture. Don’t you 
remember how you used to hide behind 
the rose bush by the walk and jump out 
and frighten me half to death by holler¬ 
ing “Boo!” when I came home in the 
evening? Don’t you remember how you 
used to climb up into the hay-mow and 
slide down with a cry of alarm at the 
start and a shout of delight at the finish 


io 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




when you landed safely in my arms? 
Don’t you remember—but pshaw! Of 
course you don’t. You haven’t reached 
the age of memories yet. In your im¬ 
agination all the beauty and brightness 
and glory of life are just ahead of you, 
and you look that way. I pray God that 
you may always look that way, always 
see the sunshine a little brighter just be¬ 
yond until you bask in the light supernal. 

And now my little girl wants to get 
married and would like to have papa’s 
consent. Papa’s a good deal in the posi¬ 
tion of the countryman who goes up 
against the shell-game at the circus. 
The young man in the case is working 
the shells, and the chances are a hundred 


ii 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


to one against papa. I’m mighty sorry 
that I don’t know him. At least, I don’t 
remember having met him, unless he was 
one of that string of dough-faced popin¬ 
jays that danced around you all the time 
I was at home last trip and kept me from 
seeing you when I wanted you all alone. 
Of all the high-collared, turned-up- 
trouser dudes I ever saw, that bunch was 
the worst—but there, maybe he was one 
of them, and, come to think of it, my 
judgment was based on the mass. You 
look at a sand pile in California and you’d 
never dream there were gold nuggets in 
it, but sometimes there are, and I’m hop¬ 
ing you’ve panned out a pretty big one, 
and one that will assay up to the limit. 


12 



T he making of a - 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

You say he’s the dearest, sweetest, bestest 
—but, my dear little girl, if Mr. William 
Jackson Rollins is all that you say he is 
the morning papers in Heaven must be 
running display advertisements asking 
for information as to the whereabouts 
of a lost, strayed, or stolen angel. If 
William fits your description he’s got no 
business down here. His proper job is 
flitting around the pearly gates shooing 
away us old sinners who want to break 
in. But I’m willing to make allowances 
for superlatives of rhetoric and enthusi¬ 
asm and consider your prospectus on a 
i per cent, basis. Besides, your mother 
assures me that William is all wool and 
the proper width, and 40 years’ experi- 


13 





T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


ence has taught me that your mother’s 
judgment can be relied on. 

Personally I don’t think any man that 
walks—or any that rides in an automo¬ 
bile, for that matter—is good enough for 
my little girl, but your old daddy’s got 
sense enough to know it’s the way of 
women to let some good-for-nothing cuss 
in trousers carry her off, just as I did 
your mother, though, for the life of me, 
I never could understand what she could 
see in this bundle of bones to hanker 
after. The Lord did a mighty good job 
when he made woman, but it seems to 
me he might have improved upon Adam 
a little. Maybe it was because, as the old 
darky says, he had more “sperience” 
14 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




when he got to the woman. Maybe, too, 
he had reasons of his own for the differ¬ 
ence. I’ve no doubt he could have made 
us better if he had wanted to, but for 
some inscrutable reason of his own he 
didn’t, and you women are just naturally 
compelled to take us as you find us. Con¬ 
sequently, I don’t expect to find perfec¬ 
tion in William. If he’s got a sufficient 
quantity of good, everyday sense, if he’s 
honest and upright, if he doesn’t jump 
backward when anybody says work, and 
if he really and truly loves you, I reckon 
that’s all that I can reasonably expect. 

I’m not particular about the size of his 
bank deposit. Just as an evidence of 
backbone, I hope he's out of debt and has 





T he makinq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


a little money laid by. I would hate to 
see you married to a dead beat or a 
spendthrift. One is a moral and the 
other is a mental delinquent, and you 
wouldn’t be likely to find happiness with 
either. But, given industry and a disposi¬ 
tion to spend a little less than is made, 
and comparative poverty in youth is no 
great drawback. When I married your 
mother I had a stout heart, a steady job, 
my trousseau, and $200 in cash. That 
was all my capital. I have more than 
that now in cash, but I don’t feel as rich 
as I did then, nor was I in reality. That 
is a good enough foundation for any 
youngster to begin married life with, 
provided, of course, the girl in the case 
16 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




is contented to start with that and be 
satisfied with what he can provide for 
her without overstepping his income. So 
I say that if William is as well fixed as 
I was I shall have no objection to him on 
the financial score. But it is mighty im¬ 
portant that he have this start, small as 
it may seem to some people, for if he 
hasn’t got it now, he isn’t likely to get it 
after marriage. Unless you are already 
informed, I would advise you to talk this 
matter over candidly with him and find 
out where he stands. It’s mighty embar¬ 
rassing to a bride to find the tailor’s un¬ 
receipted bill in the inside pocket of her 
hubby’s wedding coat, and if you dis¬ 
cover that William is a little backward 



'HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




iii money matters you’d better postpone 
the joyous ceremony until he can get a 
move on himself and get ahead of the 
pay-wagon. 

On the other hand, my dear, if your 
fiance—I hate that word, but it’s con¬ 
venient sometimes—if he has a roll as 
big as a telegraph pole, I wouldn’t con¬ 
sider it an insurmountable obstacle. 
Money is a mighty good thing to have 
lying around, and I don’t know that I 
would consider it advisable to put a limit 
on the amount, provided it doesn’t pile up 
around a man’s legs so that he can’t work. 
It seems to me that of all the useless and 
unhappy critters on earth it’s the young 
fellow saddled with an income so big 
18 



-*HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 



that he has to put in all his time getting 
rid of it. It’s a good thing to keep 
money in circulation, but under such con¬ 
ditions it has a tendency to paralyze all 
that is best in the circulator. If a man 
has a genuine, useful ambition and goes 
ahead with his work just as though he 
had to make a raise before he could get 
a new sack of flour, a surplus of a few 
millions, more or less, isn’t going to hurt 
him. However, I don’t see William’s 
name in the list of multi-plutocrats. In 
fact, my dear, I am unable to find it in 
any of the rate books of the mercantile 
agencies, which a mild curiosity induced 
me to scan. So I don’t suppose I need to 
worry about his money bursting the seams 
19 



& rjiHE MAKINg OF A 

^ SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

of his trousers pockets, nor lay awake 
nights thinking of the trouble you’ll have 
in spending it. 

I have taken it for granted, little girl, 
that you love each other. I don’t know 
why I should, for I am well aware that 
love is getting to be unfashionable; but I 
am one of those old-fashioned fellows 
who believe that love is quite essential 
to happiness in married life, and have no 
patience with those people who hold that 
mutual esteem is a satisfying substitute. 
There are lots of men and lots of women 
that I highly esteem, but I’d hate mighty 
bad to have to make a contract to live 
with any one of them indefinitely. Love 
is an entirely different proposition. It 


20 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




comes to the normal man or woman but 
once—once at a time, at any rate—and 
it’s the feeling which the good Lord 
meant should be a prelude to and a neces¬ 
sary accompaniment of the relations be¬ 
tween man and wife. It’s the real divine 
fire, little girl, and there are no substi¬ 
tutes that are of as much value as a cockle 
burr in a sack of oats by comparison. 
But young folks are sometimes mistaken 
in the feeling. They are a good deal like 
the fellow who is expecting to catch the 
itch and thinks he’s got it every time a 
flea bites him. Do you remember how 
you broke out with the hives at the same 
time Nannie Jones was down with the 
smallpox over in the next block, and how 


21 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




desperately scared your poor mother was ? 
Lots of people make the same mistake 
about love. They think they have a very 
serious attack of the real thing when it’s 
only a case of hives, figuratively speak¬ 
ing. I hope you and William have caught 
the genuine article. None but the genu¬ 
ine will last, none but the genuine will 
carry you through the storms and land 
you safely in the blessed haven. Your 
mother and I have passed 40 happy years 
together. There have been trials and 
troubles a-many, God knows, but we 
braved and breasted and surmounted 
them together upheld by love. That's the 
main thing, honey. Do you love him— 
really love him? Does he love you? 


22 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

Money and position and brains are of 
small importance when compared with 
love. It doesn’t insure happiness; there 
are circumstances under which love is un¬ 
happy, miserably unhappy sometimes, but 
you certainly can’t be happy long with¬ 
out it. 

Yes, my little girl, you have my con¬ 
sent, full and free. I wish I had more 
light. I wish that my judgment could be 
based more upon personal observation 
than in my confidence in your mother’s 
good sense, strong as that is, and in your 
own well-trained discretion. I would like 
much to see and know the man of your 
choice before I handed you over to his 
keeping, but I am so situated that I can- 

23 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


not do as I wish. I must go it blind, my 
dear, and, perhaps, it is just as well. If I 
were at home I would perhaps do just as 
your mother and yourself desired me to 
do, and, whether we know or whether we 
don’t, we must still, to a certain extent, 
go it blind in this matter of matrimony. 
We have to take a good deal on trust, 
anyhow, and we can only hope and pray 
that your married life may be as happy, 
as free from care, as your mother and I 
have tried to make your childhood days; 
that your husband may be, and always 
be, all that you now believe him to be, 
and that as wife and mother you may 
reach as near to perfection as the dear 
one who gave you birth. 


24 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




And now, little one, as to your wed¬ 
ding. I don’t believe in long engage¬ 
ments, but don’t be in a hurry. If you 
live the usual span you’ll have quite a 
considerable spell of married life, and a 
few months of waiting isn’t going to hurt 
either of you. On the contrary, the en¬ 
gagement is a period of trial that is a 
mighty valuable preliminary to marriage. 
It gives you a chance to get better ac¬ 
quainted with one another, to get a closer 
view of the one’s qualities, to find out 
whether you are really fitted for life to¬ 
gether. Many a horse that seems per¬ 
fection develops faults in training that 
disqualify him, and it’s the same way 
with man. Give him enough rope to 
25 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


show his true colors during the engage¬ 
ment, and then you are in a position to 
sidestep if serious difficulty should arise. 
There's no rush about it. The parson 
isn’t going to leave town. If he does 
there’ll be another waiting for the fee 
and just as anxious to get it. And what¬ 
ever you do, honey, don’t sneak out of 
the back door and be married by a jus¬ 
tice of the peace with a deputy constable 
as the witness. That isn’t a real mar¬ 
riage. It’s just going through some legal 
forms that enable you to live together 
without being interfered with by the 
sheriff. Her wedding should be the 
greatest event of a girl’s life, something 
that will be full of pleasant memories for 
26 



T he making of a - 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

her in after years; a memory of pretty 
dresses and prettier brides, a memory of 
joyous music and glorious flowers, with 
the odor of orange blossoms hovering 
over all and scenting the years like a 
breath from the blessed land; and, above 
all, a memory of solemn ceremony and 
of holy vows so impressed upon young 
hearts by the beauty and sublimity of the 
surroundings and the service that time 
cannot efface them. 

It’s a great thing, little girl, is your 
wedding; it’s the beginning of the real, 
the serious business of life for you, and 
it should be approached with a full appre¬ 
ciation of its duties and its responsibili¬ 
ties. Besides, you can’t afford to miss the 


27 



WE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




material pleasures of the preparation; 
the hours of shopping with your mother; 
the making of plans and specifications for 
the bridal gown; the building of weird 
and wonderful garments immersed in 
oceans of ruffles and laces and ribbons; 
the delightful little prenuptial social 
events with which your friends honor you 
—you mustn’t skip all these just because 
William is impatient. Give him to un¬ 
derstand that anything worth having is 
worth waiting for, as well as working 
for, and if my little girl ain’t worth hav¬ 
ing I don’t know anything on this green 
earth that is. No, sweetheart, take your 
time and get married right. I haven’t 
any use for these impromptu weddings. 

28 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




“Let’s go out and get an ice-cream soda, 
and while we’re about it we might as well 
tie up.” That’s the kind of stuff that fills 
the divorce courts and the newspapers 
with harrowing tales of unhappiness. 
Don’t do that, dearie; it don’t pay. Be¬ 
sides, I want to have you for my own a 
little longer, and when you do get mar¬ 
ried your old daddy wants to be there, to 
be permitted to walk down the aisle of 
the church with you on his arm and to 
give you away, while pride and sorrow 
and joy are rolling over one another in 
his heart. Yes, little girl, you have my 
consent, and may God ever bless you. 
Your affectionate father. 

John Sneed. 


29 





T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


P. S.—I have just received a manly, 
sensible, modest letter from William— 
just the kind of letter I should want to 
get from my future son-in-law. It gives 
me the impression that his friends call 
him Bill, and I like that. If his name had 
been Reginald or Algernon I should have 
felt compelled to have gone home on the 
first train to look him over. J. S. 


30 



Starting Right 


M y dear little girl : —i 

have just received your delight¬ 
ful letter telling me all about 
the preparations for your wedding. It 
carries me back to the time, some forty 
years ago, when your dear mother was 
making similar arrangements and I was 
doing a little stunt in the same line my¬ 
self. In those days the fashions in joy¬ 
ous apparel for men were not so rigidly 
fixed as now. All your William will have 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


to do is to raise the price. In my day it 
was different. To be sure, the cut of a 
man’s coat and trousers and hat for such 
occasion didn’t admit of much variation, 
but he had more latitude in the matter of 
color and goods, and, as to waistcoats, 
shirts, and ties he could go as far as he 
pleased without fracturing any rules bad 
enough to shock society. I vividly re¬ 
member what a deuce of a time I had 
trying to decide between a bright yellow 
waistcoat covered with little blue flowers 
and a white one with black dots on it. I 
finally had to ask your mother’s advice 
about it, and she favored the white one. 
Of course, her preference settled the busi¬ 
ness, but my memory still lingers fondly 
32 



T he making of a - 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

on that yellow vest. I wore a ruffled shirt 
that it took my old colored mammy a 
whole day to iron, and a blue necktie 
that made the little stars twinkle, it was so 
brilliant. Ah, my little girl, you can’t 
imagine what a swell your daddy was 
when he was a youngster. Did I ever tell 
you about the time I had getting my 
bridal suit? I don’t believe I ever did, 
and this is a most appropriate time to 
reveal to you one of the dark chapters of 
my life. 

There was only one tailor in our town, 
and he wasn’t much of a tailor. Besides, 
he had a habit of looking on the wine, or 
its Missouri equivalent, when it was most 
inconvenient for his customers. His 
33 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


name was Johnson, but it wasn’t Andy. 
He resembled Andy in his affection for 
certain brands of corn juice, but that was 
as far as the likeness went. Well, I had 
given Johnson pretty free range and 
oodles of time in the matter of my outfit, 
and I made it a point to call on him every 
day and give him a mild lecture on the 
evils of intemperance, particularly when 
wedding clothes were involved. I held 
him up pretty well, and he was getting 
along fine with the job until the day be¬ 
fore the great one, when an old pal of 
his from Kentucky blew into town. Then 
Johnson fell, and so did my hopes. I 
was going home that night, with my feet 
in the tall grass and my head up in the 


34 



~1HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




solar system somewhere, as happy as a 
honey-bee in June, when I met the tailor 
and the Kentuckian coming up the road. 
They were arm in arm, and the Appian 
way wouldn’t have been wide enough for 
them to navigate without butting into the 
fences. They were vainly endeavoring to 
sing “We won’t go home ’till morning,” 
and I knew Johnson well enough to be 
satisfied that they wouldn’t, nor the next 
day either, unless I got a move on myself. 
I changed my mind about going home. 
Instead I rounded up my best man elect 
and together we started out on the trail. 
We found them still undecided as to 
whether the north or the south side of 
the road was the better for traveling, and 



r HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




we persuaded them to keep in the mid¬ 
dle of it. It might shock you if I told 
you how we did it, but you must remem¬ 
ber, my dear, that we were young and 
hot-blooded, and the situation warranted 
extreme measures. At any rate, we 
thought so and we carried Johnson home 
on the soft side of a pine board. Lord, 
what a heavy man he was! My arms 
ache yet when I think of it. We left him 
to the willing and active ministrations of 
his wife, and, before he could get out of 
bed the next morning, we were with him 
again. Maybe we didn’t stay with him 
that day, and maybe we didn’t watch 
every stitch that his nervous fingers put 
into that suit! Two or three times he 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

tried to break loose, but every time we 
forced him back to work. Even at that 
it was dark and one sleeve of my coat 
was only basted in when I rushed fran¬ 
tically to my room to dress. I got to 
your mother’s home ten minutes late, and 
all during the ceremony I was in mortal 
terror of that coat-sleeve pulling out. 

But that was a long time ago, sweet¬ 
heart, a long time ago, and it doesn’t in¬ 
terest you much, no doubt, because your 
dear little head is so full of your own 
happiness that your daddy’s bygones pass 
you by like the summer winds, unheard. 
Besides, that wasn’t what I intended to 
write to you about when I sat down at 
this far away desk. There are a great 
37 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




many things I want to say to you. I’ve 
learned a heap, little girl, since I had that 
tussle with Johnson, forty years ago, and 
maybe some of the things I’ve learned 
may help you to find happiness when you 
have crossed over the line that separates 
the girl from the matron. Maybe it will 
and maybe it won’t. It is hard for youth 
to see with the eyes of age, and all the 
wisdom of all the ages won’t alter the 
fact that most of us learn by hard ex¬ 
perience the lessons others would have 
taught us. Nevertheless, us old fellows 
will keep on handing down advice to the 
end of the chapter, just hoping that per¬ 
haps a little of it will stick and do some 
good. 


38 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




Now, my dear, you are going to get 
married to William Jackson Rollins with 
all the frills that I can afford to throw 
around the ceremony. That’s right. 
That’s what I like. Then you are going 
away on a bridal “tower,” as they used 
to say down where I was raised, and after 
you’ve ripped around the country a few 
weeks and squandered more money than 
William can make back in six months, 
you will come back home to settle down 
and “live happy ever after.” That, I’m 
pretty sure, is as far into the future as 
you’ve got, and I guess it’s far enough, 
but I wish you’d take a little time from 
laces and ruffles and such entrancing fix¬ 
ings and give a little consideration, you 


39 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




and William together, to that business of 
settling down. Did you ever notice, when 
I’ve taken you to see a horse-race, how 
much trouble and time is taken to get the 
horses lined up for a right start? That’s 
the most important part of the business, 
getting a right start, and it’s a good deal 
more important for young folks just 
starting in married life. 

I want to see you get a right start, little 
girl, one that will land you and Bill at 
the post safe winners, and you’d better 
not have any mistaken notions about that 
‘‘happy ever after” business. It’s there, 
all right. You just bet it is. I’ve had 
forty years of it, and I know, I know; but 
it don’t come of itself, little girl, it don’t 


40 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




come just as a matter of course. Happi¬ 
ness is a manufactured product, and every 
couple have to make their own stock. I 
want you to get that stuck deep into your 
little noggin the very first thing. Happi¬ 
ness isn’t found; it’s made. And some¬ 
times there’s a whole lot of toil and a 
whole lot of trouble in the making; but, 
as a rule, the more the toil and the more 
the trouble the better and sweeter the 
product. That’s another point that’s 
worth remembering. You’ve got to get 
rid of a lot of fool notions before you 
can get started right. It takes most peo¬ 
ple years to get rid of them, but I’d like 
to have you go into this business with 
your eyes wide open, with the full knowl- 



4i 





1HE MAKing OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


edge that you are not going to drift down 
the stream in an open boat with silken 
and perfumed sails and nothing to do but 
watch the landscape. There’s something 
to do, my dear, something for you as well 
as for William. Married life isn’t a sim¬ 
ple speed trial on a straightaway course. 
It’s a hurdle-race with handicaps, and you 
stand a better chance in the running if 
you know what the weights are and some¬ 
thing about the hurdles. So if your old 
daddy bothers you with information 
about the track don’t get out of patience. 
He only wants to put you wise and save 
you as much of life’s worries and tears 
as possible. He can’t tell you everything; 
he can’t know all that the future has in 
42 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

store for you, nor warn you against the 
unknown, but what the years have taught 
him he wants to give to you; and just re¬ 
member that he does it not because he is 
just old and garrulous, but because he 
loves you better than anything else on 
earth except your mother, and wants, 
above all things, to see you happy. 

I don’t take much stock in this bridal 
tour business. I wouldn’t advise you to 
cut it out. It’s the fashion, and folks will 
say mean things if you don’t do what 
everybody else does. But don’t overdo 
it; don’t splurge too much; don’t let Will¬ 
iam feed his money to the dickey birds 
that will hang around you going and 
coming. Too many young 


43 





'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




their future in pawn in order to cut a 
wide swath on their wedding journey. 
They come back bankrupt in spirit and in 
purse; worn out bodily by the rushing 
here and yonder, trying to cover as much 
ground in a given period as their legs will 
stand, and getting peevish, bad-tempered, 
and broke in the process. It’s a bad way 
to start, my dear. It stacks a weight on 
you that it may take years to unload, and 
too often it is the basis of bickerings that 
lead to permanent unhappiness. I don’t 
know whether you remember Nellie An¬ 
derson or not, but she was a mighty fine 
girl, and when she married Tom every¬ 
body said it was an ideal match, what¬ 
ever that may be. They went off on a 


44 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




bridal trip with the announced intention 
of making things hum. And they did. 
Tom had to send home for more money 
to get back on, and, when they did strike 
the town again, they were so knocked out 
by worry and fatigue and indigestion that 
they were spatting at each other like a 
couple of cats on the back-yard fence. 
And the worst of it is that they never got 
over it, for the last time I heard of them 
they were fighting yet. No, little girl, 
don’t try to break any records on your 
bridal trip. Don’t try to see how many 
different kinds of posters you can get on 
your suit cases. Just pick out some nice, 
quiet spot, where you can stay for a few 
weeks at a cost that will come within the 
45 




r HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




limits that your husband can afford, and 
there pass the time together as sweetly 
and happily as you may, forgetting for 
the moment that there is anybody else on 
the face of this green earth, or any other 
time but the present. That’s the way to 
spend a honeymoon. That’s what a 
honeymoon is for—to get away from the 
world for a spell, not to get into the thick 
of it. Then you may—understand me, 
I say may, not will—come back at peace 
in mind and heart, knowing one another 
better and loving one another better; 
ready to get down to the serious busi¬ 
ness of married life in the proper spirit. 

That kind of a wedding trip is pretty 
near as good as none at all. When your 
46 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




mother and I were married her horse was 
saddled after the ceremony, and together 
we rode through the green-bordered lanes 
to the little home I had prepared for her. 
That was all there was to it. It’s the best 
way, I think, and yet I can’t advise you to 
do the same. Times change and customs 
change with them, and what was strictly 
proper forty years ago won’t do now. 
The trouble with even the kind of wed¬ 
ding trip I have suggested is that too 
much sweetness is likely to pall. I re¬ 
member once that you got mighty sick on 
chocolate drops, and you wouldn’t look 
at chocolate drops for a year. Yet it was 
the finest kind of candy. There’s an old 
saying, that you can’t get too much of 
47 





T he makinq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


a good thing, but it’s wrong, very wrong. 
There’s nothing finer on earth than the 
society of husband and wife, but neither 
at the beginning of married life nor after¬ 
ward is it best to have too much of it. 
It’s got to be modified by the diversions 
of everyday occupation before it will keep 
well. So I say don’t string out your trip 
too long, even if you spend it in some se¬ 
questered nook. 

And, short as you may make it, my 
dear, don’t put in all of it billing and 
cooing. It’s a good time for a little pre¬ 
liminary stock taking, a little figuring on 
joint assets, mental as well as financial; 
a little pondering over plans. Don’t get 
too all-fired material; don’t take your- 
48 



T he making of a ^ 

selves nor your future too seriously—not 
just yet. Just build air castles for the 
moment, and get yourselves in shape to 
start life right when you get back home; 
to start it as partners wholly devoted to 
each other’s good; to start it with no fool 
notions in your heads about each other’s 
perfections; to start it with the firm de¬ 
termination to take each other as you are 
and to build on that foundation a castle, 
not of air, but of love, of labor, of mutual 
joys, and mutual troubles that shall last 
till death do part. 

This isn’t all I started out to say, but 
I guess it’s about all you’ll want to digest 
this trip. I can imagine Bill is walking 
up and down the next room, with his 
49 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


hands in his pockets, wondering why in 
the world it takes a woman so long to 
dress. That’s one of the things he’ll 
never find out, but when you go down 
you can tell him it was just a love letter 
from your next best fellow that you were 
reading. That will relieve his mind about 
the toilet, and at the same time give him 
something else to worry about. Bill’s 
all right, but I can’t help but feel a little 
sore at him still for stealing my little 
girl’s heart away from me. So I’ll leave 
him and you to your devotions until I 
go home again to play a little part in the 
great drama of your lives. Good-bye, 
little girl, until then. Your affectionate 
father, John Sneed. 


50 



Ill 


The JVlanagement of a J^Ian 


M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRL:—I 
got your letter just as I was 
starting to make a bee line for 
the train, and, as I had to make a long 
jump this trip, I’ve had no opportunity 
to reply until this very minute. I read 
it through as soon as I got on board, and 
then I laid back on my seat and laughed 
all to myself. Now, don’t get excited, 
my dear; I wasn’t laughing at you. Not 
a bit of it. But the serious problems 
5i 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


which you imagine are just about to over¬ 
whelm you right at the beginning of your 
married life remind me so much of the 
same worries that encompassed your 
mother “all ’round about” like the little 
old woman’s petticoat. And the cause 
of it all was me; me, your respected and 
revered and much beloved old dad. You 
wouldn’t hardly believe it, now would 
you; but it’s a fact, my little sweetheart; 
and, gee whillikens! what a load she did 
think she had. Why, I’d be willing to bet 
a bushel of Ben Davis apples against a 
peck of railroad doughnuts that she’d 
have traded me off for a counterfeit half 
dollar with a hole in it three months after 
we were married. She never would ad- 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




mit it, of course; she was too sweet and 
gentle and good-hearted. And then she 
really thought a heap of me, even when I 
was furthest below par in her estimation. 

But it’s that way nearly all the time, my 
little girl. The trouble with you women 
is that you pick out a man and then, be¬ 
fore you’re married to him, you build a 
high pedestal of marble or onyx or some¬ 
thing equally fine, and you carve pictures 
in bold relief all around the sides illustrat¬ 
ing his transcendant virtues, just like the 
monuments you see in the parks to the 
heroes who “fit,” bled, and plundered 
for their country. Then you put the man 
up on top of this beautiful pile, and you 
look up at him with your hands clasped 
53 



f HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




and your eyes moonin’ like a calf with 
the colic, and you say, “My, ain’t he beau¬ 
tiful,” or, “Oh, ain’t he awful nice,” or 
some such emphatic and forcible expres¬ 
sion of feminine adoration. You don’t 
have a chance to get a real, genuine assay 
of him, and you think he’s all gold and 
studded around with diamonds like a 
birthday ring. Then you get married, 
and you climb up beside him and you 
make the terrible discovery that his feet 
are clay, also his hands, and likewise his 
head. In other words, you find that he’s 
just plain garden mud. And then you 
proceed to have a fit. You don’t say, 
“Woe is me,” nor beat your breast, nor 
raise the neighborhood with your cries, 
54 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




like they used to do in the three volume 
novels. Such crudities are no longer 
fashionable. You do things differently 
nowadays, but your methods are just as 
effective. 

And all this time the man is standing 
around on one foot with a face as long 
and as solemn as the president’s message, 
wondering what in the dickens is the mat¬ 
ter. Sometimes, by way of diversion, he 
goes in the other room and kicks over a 
chair or sneaks out into the back yard and 
throws rocks at the chickens. I have a 
kind of a recollection that I did something 
of that sort myself. You see, my dear, 
the man doesn’t know that he has been 
set up on a pedestal; he has just been 
55 



& 


T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


going along attending to his business 
same as usual, thinking himself a pretty 
fair average of a man and letting it go 
at that. That’s the way it’s been with 
Bill. I had a pretty good chance to size 
him up while I was loafing around home 
waiting for the wedding to come off, and 
it was my judgment then, and my opinion 
hasn’t changed, that he’s all right. He’s 
a man, and that’s all any woman can rea¬ 
sonably expect. I don’t want any cheru- 
bins or seraphims in my family, and 
you’d find life pretty uncomfortable if 
you had one of them for a husband. 
Compared with a good woman, a good 
man is mighty small potatoes, but when it 
comes to getting married there isn’t any- 
56 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




thing better available, and so you women 
are just obliged to take them and do the 
best you can with them. And that, little 
girl, is the point I want to get at. That’s 
just what you want to do with Bill—or 
William, if you prefer it. A man is just 
a piece of soft clay in a woman’s hands, 
and whether he ranks Ai or double 
nought as a husband depends a good deal 
on how she handles him. Yes, that places 
a pretty considerable responsibility on the 
woman, but you needn’t blame me. I 
didn’t have anything to do with laying out 
this arrangement. It’s that way, and I 
reckon the Lord knows what He’s about. 
Of course some men are too soft and 
some too tough to do anything with, but 
57 





T he MAKJNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


the most of them are plastic enough for 
practical purposes, and I’m satisfied your 
William’s one of the majority. 

It’s up to you, sweetheart, to take the 
material you have and make a good hus¬ 
band out of it. Don’t expect nor try to 
do more than that. Don’t attempt to 
mold him into a figure of Gabriel tooting 
a trombone. Don’t try to put too many 
fine lines in your model. If you do, the 
whole blamed thing will come to pieces, 
and then, little girl, you can never, never 
put it together again. Just remember 
that your material is mud, and mud, even 
in the hands of an expert modeler, has its 
limitations. Restrain your ambition to 
the point of making a good husband, and 

58 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




when you have accomplished that be sat¬ 
isfied with keeping him so. 

How? Oh, my dear little girl, you 
have a better counselor than I right at 
home. I’m not saying that your mother 
did a very good job with me, but, bless 
her heart, it wasn’t because she didn’t 
know how. The trouble was with the 
material. She can tell you much more 
and much better than I can what and how 
to do. And yet there are some pointers 
I can give you that may be of value to 
you, mainly because they will enable you 
to get a view of things from a man’s 
standpoint. I have intimated that a man 
is pretty generally what women make 
him. His mother gives him his start in 
59 



& 


T he makinq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


character building, and his wife puts on 
the finishing touches, but it isn’t good 
policy to let him know that you are work¬ 
ing on him. A good deal has been said 
about the contrariness of women, but she 
isn’t really in the same class with a man 
if he thinks somebody is trying to im¬ 
prove him. So whatever you make up 
your mind to do with William, don’t, for 
Heaven’s sake, give him a hint of your 
designs. And, as I said before, don’t try 
to do too much. 

In the first place, my dear, you’d bet¬ 
ter get the fact buried deep in the middle 
of your gray matter and keep it there, 
that the most important point in the ma¬ 
king of a good husband is the making 
60 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




of a good wife. That takes time and ex¬ 
perience, but two processes can go along 
side by side, for you needn’t expect Bill 
to be ready for the last coat of varnish 
by day after to-morrow. No, indeedy, 
little girl, you can’t turn out finished hus¬ 
bands like you can hot waffles; and speak¬ 
ing of waffles brings me right to the start¬ 
ing point in the home industry I’m talk¬ 
ing about. That’s a little matter of feed. 
It’s a fact so old that even Eve got a hint 
of it that the first principle in the manage¬ 
ment of a man is the satisfaction of his 
stomach. Whatever else he may be, no 
matter how full of brains his head, he’s 
an animal, and he wants to be fed. Why, 
I’ve seen the greatest apostles of the doc- 
61 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


trines of sweetness and light set down to 
the table and eat like a blue-ribbon porker 
with his feet in the trough. Yet com¬ 
paratively few women appreciate the im¬ 
portance of this fact, and many a home 
is ruined by the theory that anything that 
happens to be handiest will do for dinner. 
It won’t. Give him the best his income 
will afford, and see to it yourself that it 
is properly cooked. The average man 
isn’t hard to satisfy. He doesn’t hanker 
after the strange and weird dishes you’ll 
find in the cook-books. He doesn’t care 
for airy wafers and delicate ices. He 
only wants something plain and substan¬ 
tial and filling, like roast beef or bacon 
or ham and eggs, or something equally 
62 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




gross and just as bully. Fill him up with 
such truck, and then he’ll lean back and 
beam at you like a father of a first baby. 
That is, if it’s cooked right. If the steak 
comes to the breakfast table fried hard, if 
the eggs are swimming in grease or the 
biscuits heavy enough to use as weights 
on the cuckoo clock, he’s got a kick com¬ 
ing. And it will come. It may not be 
just then. He may keep it to himself un¬ 
til he collects an assortment, and then 
let them out all at once. But sooner or 
later the kick will come, and the longer 
he holds it in the harder it will come out. 
So, my dear, I say to you solemnly and 
prayerfully, see to it, personally, that 
William is well fed. Maybe that’s what’s 

63 



^ rnHE MAKIN§ OF A 

^ SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

the matter with him now. Maybe he’s al¬ 
ready got the grouch of the under-fed or 
the badly fed. Better figure on that a lit¬ 
tle, my dear. 

And then, little girl, make home so 
comfortable and so pleasant that he won’t 
want to leave it, except to go down town 
and hustle like a good fellow for the 
woman who presides over it. When I 
see a man jump for his hat when the quit¬ 
ting bell rings and make a bee line for the 
first car that will get him home I say to 
myself, “That fellow doesn’t have to go 
chasin’ around nights lookin’ for amuse¬ 
ment. He’s got all he wants at home;” 
and when a man has that he’s bound to 
be contented, and, being contented, he’s 
64 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




bound to be happy, and, being happy, he’s 
bound to be good-natured, and, being 
good-natured, he’s bound to be a good 
husband if he’s rightly managed on the 
intellectual side. I’ll have a word to say 
on that side presently. It’s the purely 
physical side you want to look after first. 
After he’s been fed let him have his easy 
chair, his slippers, and his cigar. Don’t 
keep everything so spick and span and 
shiny and straight up and down that he’s 
afraid to sit down anywhere because he 
might disarrange a piece of Battenberg 
or a sofa pillow. What women call a 
good housekeeper isn’t always a good 
wife, not by a long shot. If a man has 
to sit up in a spindle back new art chair 

65 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


as stiff as a reinforced billiard cue, he’s 
going to sigh for something different, and 
the first thing you know he’ll be sneaking 
out on business about three nights in the 
week. No, my dear, let Bill feel that 
right at home he can get more solid com¬ 
fort than he can have anywhere else on 
earth, and you’ve got him anchored for 
keeps. 

And yet, that isn’t everything. For in¬ 
stance, if you were to fall into the habit 
of strolling over to a neighbor’s every 
evening while he reads the papers he’d 
have good cause to grumble, and probably 
would. He married to get a companion, 
not just a housekeeper, and he wants you 
with him, not all of the time, but most of 
66 



rjiHE 


TAKING OF A 
SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




the time, when he’s at home. He wants 
you to sit on the other side of the table 
by the fireside; he wants to read to you 
or have you read to him; he wants to 
gossip with you just like pals; he wants 
to tell you of his hopes and ambitions; he 
wants you to help him in his struggle 
with the world, by your sympathy, your 
encouragement, and your advice; he 
wants to hear your troubles—not the end¬ 
less repetition of the daily string of an¬ 
noyances which come to every wife, but 
the real troubles, the problems which you 
find it hard to solve for yourself; and, 
over and above all, little girl, he wants to 
feel the gentle caress in touch and speech; 
the little evidences of the love that does 
67 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




not die with the honeymoon, but lives on 
and grows stronger and stronger with 
each passing year. 

That’s the intellectual side, sweet¬ 
heart. That’s the side that gives married 
life it’s sweetness and beauty and makes 
home a home of happiness; but it will 
peter out mighty fast under a diet of 
soggy rolls and weak coffee. Just re¬ 
member that, little girl; just remember 
that. Your affectionate dad, 

John Sneed. 


68 




IV 


Spending and Saving 


M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRL:—I 
don't know how big a wad Bill 
puts into his pocket when the 
ghost walks on Saturday afternoon, but 
I’m pretty sure that sweet William is no 
$10,000 beauty, at least, not to anybody 
but you. His employers may pay him a 
pretty good salary, but Til bet a whole 
string of Missouri mules that he earns 
every cent of it, and the future happiness 
of both of you depends to a great extent 
69 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


on how you spend it. I am led to this 
reflection by the faint odor of burning 
currency which clings to your last letter, 
and which leads me to believe that Wil¬ 
liam’s expenditures are running a pretty 
close race with the pay-wagon. I may be 
wrong about this, but I’ve been loaded 
up with a few brief remarks for some 
time, and I’ll feel better if I can deliver 
them where I think they’ll do the most 
good. Maybe I’m wrong in my surmises, 
but if I am you won’t take it amiss. 
You know your nomadic old dad has but 
one object in view, and that is to make 
you happy, to show you the way as well 
as he can to the permanent happiness that 
comes with a life well lived. 



7 HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




Now, as old Parson Smart used to say, 
after he had led his bewildered flock so 
far from the text they couldn’t remember 
whether it was from the Songs of Solo¬ 
mon or the Epistle to the Thessalonians; 
now we will return to our “mittens.” 
And our “mittens,” that is, yours and 
Bill’s, is in the little yellow envelope that 
the cashier hands out through the grated 
window every Saturday. That little yel¬ 
low envelope is the basis of all that is 
material and much that isn’t material in 
our lives, and should, therefore, be treated 
with profound respect. It is of the ut¬ 
most importance to all of us that it come 
to us with regularity, but what we do 
with it after we get it is a blamed sight 



^8 


T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


more important still. Most people seem 
to think that it all depends on the number 
of dollars it contains. That, I admit, is a 
highly interesting subject, but it doesn’t 
count for much alongside the problem of 
placing the dollars. Whether it’s ten a 
week or a hundred a week, it takes 
stretching to carry it over seven days and 
leave a margin to button up on Monday. 
Maybe you’ve heard the politicians and 
other financial experts talking about 
“elastic currency.” Bill has, I’m sure. 
Well, they don’t mean exactly the same 
thing as I do by it, but it’s mighty essen¬ 
tial that the cashier puts elastic currency 
into the yellow envelope, and it’s a lot 
more essential that you know how to 
72 



T he making of a _ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE & 


stretch all the little kinks and curlyques 
out of it. That’s the kind of a pull every 
man ought to have, and if his wife catches 
hold with both hands and pulls as hard 
or harder than he does they can draw it 
out to the middle of next week without 
getting cramps in their muscles. It’s 
wonderful What a woman can do in that 
way when she wants to, and it’s also sur¬ 
prising what a weak back the average 
man gets when he tries the job by him¬ 
self. 

No, my little girl, this matter of 
stretching salaries or of making both ends 
lap over is team work. Most women 
seem to think that they’ve done their 
whole duty by their husband’s salary 
73 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


when they’ve helped him to blow it in. 
I’m a whole lot afraid you’ve got some 
such notion in your own dear little nog¬ 
gin. But it’s a mistake, a bad mistake. 
The good Lord didn’t put men on earth 
for the sole purpose of providing pretty 
clothes and ice-cream sodas for the other 
sex. That’s a prevalent idea, I’ll admit, 
and that’s about all a good many men 
really do, but I’m willing to stake my 
judgment that it’s wrong. The main 
business of life is home building. The 
governments of the earth, the great fi¬ 
nancial corporations, the discoveries of 
science, even the women’s clubs are of 
secondary importance. And in the work 
of home building the man and the woman 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




should stand side by side, shoulder to 
shoulder. Do you remember, little girl, 
that piece of poetry you recited the day 
you graduated from high school? 
Cracky, but you did look fine in your 
pretty white dress with the blue ribbon 
around your‘waist! I didn’t catch much 
of what you were saying, I was so busy 
thinking how proud I was of you, but 
a few lines stuck in my craw that went 
something like this: 

As unto the bow the cord is. 

So unto the man is woman, 

Dumpty, dumpty, dumpty, dumpty, 
Useless each without the other. 

There’s something missing right in the 
middle of it, but the point’s there, and it’s 
75 



f HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


& 


just the point I want you to see. “Use¬ 
less each without the other.” That’s it 
exactly. The man who wrote it, whoever 
he was, probably wasn’t thinking about 
yellow envelopes, but it fits every phase 
of married life. You don’t often get 
so much practical common sense out of 
poetry. “Useless each without the 
other.” La me, Bill can’t do all the 
home building by himself. You’ve got to 
pitch in and help him, and the place to 
begin is right at the cashier’s window on 
Saturday afternoon. 

Of course, you don’t have the pleasure 
of the cashier’s acquaintance. He’s a 
mighty fine fellow, is the cashier, but 
you’ve got no business at his window. 

76 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




That’s Bill’s place. But it’s a good deal 
important that Bill doesn’t lose what the 
cashier gives him before he gets home. 
Lots of men are careless that way, my 
dear. Lots of them don’t go home at all 
Saturday night. Of course, that relieves 
the woman of some responsibility in the 
matter I’m talking about, but it also re¬ 
moves the necessity for ice in the family 
refrigerator, and it puts a bend in a 
woman’s back and a dent in a woman’s 
heart that shouldn’t be there. I just 
mentioned this incidental. I have no 
doubt about your William getting home 
at a proper hour Saturday night and rea¬ 
sonably upright. What I mean, sweet¬ 
heart, is that the effect of your gentle in- 
77 



'HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




fluence should be felt by him from the 
moment he draws his pay, that he should 
be so impressed with the principle of part¬ 
nership, of equal rights in the proceeds 
of his labor, that he is thinking of you 
when he opens the yellow envelope, think¬ 
ing of you when he counts its contents, 
and thinking of you as he rides home 
with it intact. And it’s up to you to do 
the impressing. Not with a rolling-pin 
or a flatiron, but by showing him that you 
have a deep personal interest in his af¬ 
fairs, that you are no doll baby to be 
dressed and petted, but a sensible woman 
whose chief thought is her husband’s wel¬ 
fare, a woman who knows that a dollar 
is composed of one hundred cents, and 
78 



''HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




who knows how, or is willing to learn 
how, to make every one of them worth 
par in the domestic economy. 

The woman who takes no thought of 
her husband’s financial affairs, who 
spends his money without knowing or 
caring what he can afford, is not a help¬ 
mate, but an incumbrance. It may be 
that he carries the load willingly, even 
joyfully. It may be that in the first over¬ 
whelming unselfishness of his love he 
would not have her any different. But he 
will find that the load grows heavier with 
time, and then he will sigh for the help 
and sympathy to which he is entitled. He 
will go on bearing the load, no doubt, un¬ 
less he is overwhelmed by disaster, but 



f HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




he will recognize that it is a load, that 
he has somehow been cheated when the 
wedding cards were dealt, that the whole 
business is unfair and marriage indeed a 
failure. Such a woman, little girl, doesn’t 
measure up to the standard of a wife. 
She has sacrificed her opportunity and 
traded future happiness for present grati¬ 
fication. I want my daughter to be her 
husband’s partner, to share and share 
alike in the burdens as well as the joys of 
life. That’s the kind of a wife your 
mother is, God bless her! and that’s the 
kind of a wife that makes marriage a suc¬ 
cess, unless the man in the case is a dod- 
rotted idiot. 

The average woman is a better man- 
80 




T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




ager in small things than the average 
man. In the financial affairs of the 
household she can make a dollar go twice 
as far as he can, if she wants to do it and 
puts her mind to it. She is better at driv¬ 
ing a bargain, has a clearer understand¬ 
ing of values, and a greater respect for 
the penny as a unit of measurement. 
When a man gets this fact into his head, 
when he learns that she not only desires 
to help him, but is to be trusted with the 
purse strings, he is pretty likely to make 
use of her talents and let her share in the 
expenditure of his salary. Many a man 
is so impressed with the financial ability 
of his wife and his own lack of it that 
he turns over all of his earnings to her, 
81 



'HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




and is a greater gainer by the transaction. 
But such a shifting of responsibility is in 
itself a confession of weakness or incapa¬ 
bility and, besides, places an unfair load 
on the wife. The better plan is based on 
the idea of equal partnership, equality of 
income, equality of expense, and equality 
of profit. That is to say, let him divide 
his salary with his wife, each assume re¬ 
sponsibility for half of the fixed expenses 
of the household, and each have the right 
to spend or save his or her share of the 
remainder without question from the 
other. That gives the wife a definite 
standing in the economy of the house¬ 
hold; it makes her financially indepen¬ 
dent, and at the same time places an ob- 
82 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

ligation upon her which she is not likely 
to ignore. That’s the way I’d like to see 
you and William arrange your affairs, be¬ 
cause I know by my own experience, as 
well as the experience of others, that it is 
the surest road to independence, and be¬ 
cause it promotes that mutual respect and 
confidence which, when associated with 
love, form the basis of married happi¬ 
ness. 

Of course I don’t know, my dear, what 
William’s attitude may be. Some men 
find it mighty hard to cough up any part 
of their income even for household ex¬ 
penses, let alone pin money. But, taking 
it for granted that he’s the kind of a hair¬ 
pin I think he is, and willing to do the 





T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


square thing by you when he learns what 
is the square thing, let’s figure a little on 
your end of the seesaw. Suppose that he 
gives you half of his salary and he says, 
“now, darling,” or “sweetness,” or 
“bunch o’ roses”—whatever it is he calls 
you when his dinner fits him well—“now 
you pay for the provisions, the laundry, 
and the help, and all you have left you can 
spend for clothes or anything else you 
want, but you mustn’t exceed your allow¬ 
ance, and if you can save some of it all 
the better. I’ll pay the rent, the fuel, the 
light, and all the other expenses, with the 
same understanding as to the leavings.” 
Suppose he does this, what are you going 
to do? Let me give you a few pointers. 
84 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


*se 


In the first place, don’t have a charge 
account anywhere. It’s mighty conveni¬ 
ent, but it’s also mighty expensive. A 
dollar in cash will go a good deal further 
than ioo cents on the grocer’s books. 
You can buy wherever you can get the 
most for your money, some things at one 
place, some things at another. You are 
in a position to take advantage of any 
genuine bargains that may be offered any¬ 
where. At the same time you always 
know exactly where you stand. When 
you run an account you don’t know what 
you’re up against until the bill comes in 
the first of the month, and then it’s al¬ 
ways more than you expected. If there’s 
a mistake or an overcharge you can have 
85 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


it corrected at once if you are paying 
cash; if you are doing business on credit 
you probably won’t know anything about 
it at all. 

In the second place, do your own mar¬ 
keting so far as you can. It’s the only 
way to be reasonably sure that you are 
getting what you pay for. It gives you 
an opportunity to see what is in the mar¬ 
ket and to make better selections. More 
than that, it teaches you to recognize val¬ 
ues, and it gives you a knowledge of hu¬ 
man nature you couldn’t acquire in a hun¬ 
dred years by sitting up in your boudoir 
and kimono reading an Indiana novel. 
A knowledge of human nature is mighty 
valuable, my dear, just as valuable in 
86 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




business at home as in business down¬ 
town; the only trouble is the more you 
know about it the less you like it. At the 
same time the more you know about hu¬ 
man nature the better you like the cash 
system. 

Two-thirds of the economy of the 
household is in the buying, the other third 
is in the use of what you buy. The last 
even more than the first requires experi¬ 
ence, and it is experience that must be 
mostly self-gained, but your mother can 
help you a lot if you will let her. I guess 
IVe said more than you want to read 
about spending and mighty little about 
saving. There isn’t much to say about 
saving. As old John Sherman said about 
87 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


specie payments, “the only way to resume 
is to resume.” So with saving—the only 
way to save is to save. Don’t stint. 
There is a broad difference between stingi¬ 
ness and economy. Dress as prettily and 
as stylishly as you can; have all the com¬ 
forts and luxuries you can properly af¬ 
ford, but keep within your allowance, and 
always aim to have a margin at the end 
of the week. 

Whether it’s big or little, have a mar¬ 
gin, and then you are always on the safe 
side, also the saving side. Put the mar¬ 
gins away somewhere, the bank’s the best 
place, and keep them. Don’t touch your 
savings for anything but actual necessity, 


88 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




and, if it should come to that, your old 
dad would like to be consulted. 

Now, my little girl, this is a mighty 
prosy subject. Maybe it’s distasteful, but 
you want to remember that Bill’s down¬ 
town in his shirt-sleeves working, work¬ 
ing, working for you, and it’s a dog- 
gonned prosy business, too, taking it by 
itself. But his love fills it with poetry, 
and so your love for him can weave 
hexameters, or whatever they call them, 
about the dollars and cents, the toil and 
the trouble and the tears of household 
economy. Put the poetry into it, honey, 
put the poetry—but, gee whiz! there’s my 
train. Good-bye. Your affectionate dad, 
John Sneed. 


89 



V 


Trending Family Jars 


M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRL:—a 
little while ago, just a little 
while it seems to me, though it 
may seem ages to you, when you were a 
little bit of a child, I used to take you on 
my knee in the evenings by the firelight 
and tell you stories. Sometimes they 
were just to entertain you, but some other 
times they had lessons hidden in their 
sugar coats. Now, I want you to im¬ 
agine yourself a baby girl again, and that 
go 



T he making of a „ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


you are cuddled up in my lap, with your 
curly, golden head nestling against my 
shoulder, and that I am telling you the 
story about the two kings and the butter¬ 
milk pail. Perhaps you don’t remember 
the story of the two kings and the butter¬ 
milk pail? Well, dearie, keep your head 
right there on my shoulder, and I’ll tell it 
to you now. 

Once upon a time there were two kings, 
pretty good sort of fellows as kings go, 
but they were both tremendously fond 
of buttermilk. One of them liked it so 
well that he had a pail made for his 
special use that was the wonder of the 
world. It was hammered out of pure 
gold, so bright and shiny that when it 


9i 





T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


was hung out to air the sun hurried up 
and got behind a cloud, and it was set 
with diamonds and rubies as big as wal¬ 
nuts. At last its fame reached the other 
king, who had been contentedly drinking 
his buttermilk out of a ten cent tin pail, 
and wiping his mouth on his shirt-sleeves, 
and he straightway fell sick with envy. 
So he sent special messengers to the first 
king’s court to try and buy the wonderful 
buttermilk pail. 

But the first king laughed them to 
scorn. “Ha, ha,” he cried, for he was 
full of buttermilk and vainglorious. “Go 
tell your craven king to stick to tin.” So 
they departed. And when they had made 
their official report and filed their ex- 
92 



T he making of a 

pense account the second king jumped 
out of his royal bed and kicked his royal 
pajamas out of the window. “Gad- 
zooks!” he cried, “let me at him.” So 
they went to war. And when they had 
fought for years, and thousands of good 
men who couldn’t afford buttermilk and 
didn’t like it, anyhow, had been killed, 
the first king called a truce, and they had 
a parley. “By the way,” said the first 
king, “what did we start this row about ?” 
“Blessed if I can remember,” said the sec¬ 
ond king, “but whatever it was, you’re 
another.” “And you’re another,” said the 
first king. So they went at it again, and 
after they were both dead from appendi¬ 
citis or rheumatism or something like 
93 





T he MAKJNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


that, it was discovered that the second as¬ 
sistant lord of the poultry yard had been 
using the golden buttermilk pail to feed 
the chickens, for the past twenty years. 

It’s hardly necessary to say, my dear, 
that I am not telling this story exclusively 
for your entertainment. I don’t know 
whether you see the point or not, but it’s 
there, and I am moved to uncover it by 
a little conversation, scraps of which I 
could not help but hear as they floated 
over the back of the car seat in front of 
me this morning. It was just the ragged 
end of a family quarrel, an insignificant 
little spat between a young man and his 
young wife, but it carried my thoughts to 
you and William. Of course, I know you 
94 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 



never quarrel, and, even if you did, you 
are too well bred to do it in public. I 
can hear you say this with a toss of your 
pretty head and a retrousse curl of your 
dainty nose that ought to be either tempt¬ 
ing or exasperating to Bill, according to 
the way he feels. All the same, little girl, 
unless you and he have got your diplomas 
and been measured for your heavenly uni¬ 
forms I am satisfied that you have your 
little disagreements. And I don’t blame 
you at all for that. We are all more or 
less human, and, no doubt, in order to 
keep things from getting too monotonous 
down here, the good Lord has so arranged 
matters that no two of us can always have 
the same opinions. You can see at once, 
95 



^ rpHE MAKING OF A 

^ SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

can’t you, what a dreary place this would 
be if we all thought alike. Why, we’d 
all wear exactly the same kind of clothes, 
live in houses the same size and color, eat 
the same food, and there wouldn’t be any¬ 
thing at all to talk about. These differ¬ 
ences of opinion are just as natural and 
probably just as frequent in your house 
as in your next door neighbor’s, and quar¬ 
rels are merely disagreements gone to 
seed. 

A little quarrel now and then isn’t a 
bad thing in any family. On the con¬ 
trary, my dear, it has it’s virtues. Do¬ 
mestic life is too likely to become hum¬ 
drum if it is all cooing and billing. It 
needs spice. But just a pinch, little girl, 
96 



T he making of a . 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE & 

just a pinch. You know what delightful 
spice cake your mother makes. Well, 
now, suppose she should make a mistake 
and put in as much spice as she does flour. 
Wouldn’t be fit to eat, would it? That’s 
just the difference. As the Good Book 
says, a little leaven leavens the whole 
lump, but you want to be mighty care¬ 
ful about getting too much leaven in. It’s 
so easy to go too far, particularly in the 
matter of family quarrels. The best way 
to hold them down to the right propor¬ 
tions is by trying hard not to have any 
at all. Being human, you probably can’t 
do it, but the mere effort will serve to 
keep them from jumping out of the spice 
box into the flour bin; so that when I say, 
97 



^ rjiHE MAKmg OF A 

^ SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

solemnly and with parental sternness, 
don’t quarrel, I mean don’t quarrel any 
oftener than you can possibly help. 

But when you do quarrel—and this is 
the meat in the cocoanut—when you do 
quarrel, make it up quickly. Don’t let it 
drag. Don’t put it back in the refrigera¬ 
tor and warm it up for to-morrow. Have 
it out at once and then—forget it. That’s 
the quality that makes the little tilts be¬ 
tween husband and wife harmless—that’s 
the gentle art of forgetting. One of the 
happiest couples I ever knew was old 
Jerry Palmer and his wife, who used to 
live just around the corner from us. I 
really believe there never was a day that 
they did not have a quarrel, and I am 
98 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




just as confident they never had it on 
their minds when they went to sleep. I 
mention them just to show the possibili¬ 
ties of forgetting, not as an example for 
you to follow. Not by a long shot. Pal¬ 
mer and his wife were exceptional cases. 

They were a good deal like some Mexi¬ 
cans who won’t eat strawberries unless 
they are seasoned with red pepper. Their 
daily life had to be seasoned red-hot. 
Such a diet, mental or physical, is un¬ 
healthy for ninety-nine out of a hundred 
married couples, and you and Bill, I’m 
pretty sure, belong to the ninety-nine. 
So I say, try not to have any family jars 
at all, but when there is any broken crock¬ 
ery around the house mend it the same 


99 



WE MAKINQ OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




day, before the lights go out. Then your 
quarrels will be like little summer clouds 
that obscure the sun for a while but make 
it seem all the brighter when they pass. 
There is nothing much sweeter in life, my 
dear, than the sunburst of love and trust 
which follows a domestic shower; that is, 
if the love and trust are there and un¬ 
dimmed. 

The trouble is, little girl, that too many 
quarrels are not allowed to pass. Like 
prize chickens, they are fed and nursed 
and petted and grow stronger and harder 
to kill every day. They are drawn out 
—it’s quarrels I’m talking about now, not 
chickens—they are drawn out day after 
day, until love grows tired and slips out 


ioo 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




the front door, never, perhaps, to return. 
And all for what? Just a little too much 
pride, just a little too much stiffness of 
the neck, just a little too much derned 
fool stubbornness. That’s it. “He’s 
wrong, and I won’t give in.” That’s 
what you say. No doubt that’s what he 
says. And so you go on with the corners 
of your mouths turned down and the 
ends of your noses turned up, sacrificing 
all that is good and true and beautiful in 
life for a buttermilk pail. Do you get 
the point of that story now? Practically 
all quarrels, particularly domestic ones, 
are about comparative trifles, but they are 
too often carried on until the real cause 
is forgotten and in its place is a mutual 


IOI 



^ rpHE MAKmg OF A 

^ JL SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

antagonism, unforgiving and unrelent¬ 
ing, the destroyer of happiness and chief 
commissioner of supplies for the divorce 
courts. Oh, my little girl, quarrel if you 
must, but don’t let ’em drag, don’t let ’em 
drag. 

But, you may protest, he says things 
that hurt, things one can’t forget so 
easily. Uh huh! I guess so. But, my 
dear, I’ll bet my old gray horse against 
a small boy’s pocket knife that what he 
says to you is like soothing syrup com¬ 
pared to what you say to him. The good 
Lord provided every animal with some 
kind of a weapon of offense or defense. 
A man’s is his fist, a woman’s is her 
tongue. Civilization has so far pro- 


102 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




gressed that a man—that is, a gentleman 
—cannot use his natural weapon in deal¬ 
ing with a woman. That’s all right. 
Civilization has made some mistakes, but 
that isn’t one of them. But it has placed 
no such limitations on woman’s weapon, 
and ages of constant use have given her 
a skill that puts a man at a pretty con¬ 
siderable disadvantage. Whether she 
uses it as a poniard or a meat-ax depends 
upon her temperament, but the result is 
usually the same; the man picks up his 
hat and jumps for the front door. Now, 
it’s a peculiarity of most women under 
such circumstances that, while she remem¬ 
bers with highly magnified clearness all 
that he says, and much that he didn’t, she 
103 



'HE MAKINQ OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




entirely forgets the occasional remarks 
she made herself. I want you to reverse 
that process. Think over what you said, 
and long before time for Bill to come 
back from work you will be in the proper 
frame of mind to meet him with a kiss, 
to be your own sweet self, serene and 
smiling, just as if a quarrel had never 
happened since the world began. Then, 
for Heaven’s sake, don’t refer to the dis¬ 
agreement again. You can bet your life 
Bill won’t. 

Of course, you are entitled to your own 
opinions, all you want of them. So is he. 
But let me tell you one thing, my little 
girl, and if I was a printer I’d put it in 
the biggest type to be had, there never 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

- 4 - 




was an opinion that was worth the price 
of your happiness. Have your opinions, 
but don’t try to impress them on Bill with 
a potato masher. That way isn’t effec¬ 
tive, and, besides, it lacks refinement. 
When you want him to think your way 
just put your arm around his neck and— 
but pshaw! You know how. All women 
do. The trouble is they sometimes allow 
their tempers to blind them to the old 
reliable, never failing method that they 
have had copyrighted since the days of\ 
Mrs. Adam. It’s an old saying that it 
takes two to make a quarrel, and there’s 
another almost as old, that it takes but 
one to end it. Both are equally true, but 
when it comes to closing up a domestic 





THE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


controversy a woman will succeed where 
a man will only get his foot in deeper, and 
she can do it without concessions, with¬ 
out humiliation, by the simple trick of 
forgetting. That’s the stuff that will 
mend family jars quicker and more ef¬ 
fective than anything else. Paste the 
recipe in your cook book, my dear, and 
take a look at it every time you get on 
the warpath. So long, little sweetheart. 
Your affectionate dad, 

John Sneed. 


106 



VI 

Jylan’s Faults and Failings 


M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRLIt 
takes some women longer than 
others to wake up to the fact 
that their husbands are not truly and ab¬ 
solutely and altogether perfect, and some 
are likewise slower than others in becom¬ 
ing reconciled to the commonplace. I 
don’t know what you expected of Bill, but 
it seems to me that I have already put it 
pretty plain to you that whatever it was 
he would fall considerably short of the 
107 





T he makinq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


mark, being human, and a man. And it’s 
a mighty good thing that he does, too, for 
woman’s ideal man won’t fit into the 
everyday life of this practical age. He’d 
be run in by the cops before he got a 
block away from home, just on suspicion. 
He’d be as lonesome as the little boy that 
got lost in the cornfield. Did I ever tell 
you that story? Remind me of it the next 
time I’m at home. It’s a pretty good 
story, but just now I’ve got some things 
to say that will be hard to keep within 
the limit of a two-cent stamp. 

You present a pretty big indictment 
against him. At any rate, I’ve no doubt 
it looks that way to you. You say that 
he wants to smoke at home; that he drops 
108 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




various and sundry things, like magazines 
and cuffs and such, around the house, and 
that sometimes in the evening he even 
goes so far as to put his feet on the li¬ 
brary chairs. That’s awful, simply aw¬ 
ful ! But, my dear little girl, it might be 
worse. These are grievous shortcom¬ 
ings; I’ll have to admit it, even though 
I plead guilty to them myself. But these 
very failings prove to me that my estimate 

of William is correct. He’s just a man, 

♦ 

a plain, ordinary man, but still he is a 
man. Somehow or other we just can’t 
make our conduct jibe with the rules laid 
down for the pure, the good, and the 
beautiful, and when a woman gets a man 
whose faults are home grown, she’d bet- 



^ rpHE MAKmg OF A 

^ £ SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

ter accept them with resignation and 
thankfulness, and then proceed to make 
virtues of them. 

For virtues they can be, little girl, 
though they are negative. The very 
charges you make against William indi¬ 
cate to me that he loves his home, and 
when a man manifests an affection for 
his own fireside you can bet your sweet 
little life that he has in him the materials 
that good husbands are made of. Your 
charges show me that he spends his even¬ 
ings at home, and that he is up in the 
morning clear-headed and ready for busi¬ 
ness. They show me that there is no 
nonsense about Billy. He isn’t one of 
those fellows who want to embroider vio- 


no 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

lets on the summer clouds. He’s onto his 
job. He recognizes the fact that the chief 
object of his existence is to provide bread 
and oleo and a few other things, like 
stuffed olives and embroidered shirt 
waists, for you. Therefore and conse¬ 
quently he must hustle. You probably 
don’t know it—few women do—but it’s 
a pretty serious proposition, this business 
of taking care of a family. It’s a respon¬ 
sibility that mighty soon takes the super¬ 
fluous sentiment out of a man. Under¬ 
stand me now, I said superfluous; the 
kind that slops over and runs down the 
sides like molasses on a jug, just as sweet 
as that on the inside, but gommy and use¬ 
less. 


hi 



'HE MAKJNg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


dt 


But getting back to Billy’s faults, I 
want to tell you how they look to a man, 
to an old man, who has always believed 
that good manners and courtesy, which 
come pretty near being the same thing, 
are just as important at home, and a lit¬ 
tle more so, than anywhere else, but who 
doesn’t look upon the Handy Manual of 
Etiquette as the law and the gospel, nor 
accept as infallible the teachings of the 
professor of a department in the young 
lady’s seminary. And firstly, as to smok¬ 
ing. That, I admit, is a fault, but it is 
one with so many saving graces that it 
really ought to be encouraged by the so¬ 
ciety for the promotion of domestic hap¬ 
piness. It is pretty generally accepted 


112 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

that the natural, inborn, innate cussedness 
of the masculine sex has to have an out¬ 
let, a sort of a moral or mental safety 
valve as it were, to keep it from tearing 
loose and breaking up things, some of the 
ten commandments for instance; and it is 
a fact beyond question that a good cigar, 
or one of its decent substitutes, will an¬ 
swer that purpose with less harm to him¬ 
self and less damage to his surroundings 
than anything else. You may grant all 
this and still wonder why he can’t do his 
smoking away from home. If so, your 
college education is defective, for it failed 
to teach you some mighty important 
things about the effects of tobacco on the 
human system, particularly the human 



^ rriHE MAKmg of a 

^ -* SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

brain. Taken in moderation, its action is 
at once sedative and stimulating. It pro¬ 
motes digestion, quiets the nerves, and, 
while it tranquilizes the mind, it doesn’t 
deaden it. On the contrary, its mental 
effect is that of oil on a squeaky axle. It 
makes the wheel run easier and at the 
same time faster. 

A good dinner, a comfortable chair, the 
company of a sympathetic and loving 
wife, and a fragrant Havana, make a 
combination that will carry a man about 
as near to heaven as he can get on this 
side of the Jordan. It brings out all 
that is good in him, removes the worries 
of the day, straightens out the wrinkles 
in his brain, makes him more amiable, a 



T he making of a _ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE & 


pleasanter companion, a better husband. 
Leave out the cigar and the cares of busi¬ 
ness are likely to stay with him; he is 
grumpy and irritable, ready to quarrel at 
the drop of the hat, and about as enter¬ 
taining as a lobster salad in the throes 
of digestion. If you make him go out 
and sit on the curbstone alone while he 
takes his after-dinner smoke, the effect is 
morally and physically bad, and the first 
thing you know he’ll be chasing off to 
some place where he can smoke in com¬ 
fort. That’s the beginning of the end. 
It’s a wise woman who let’s her husband 
smoke at home, and if my advice has any 
weight with you you’ll encourage the 
habit in Billy—in moderation, mind you; 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


but for goodness sake beg him to get a 
better brand of cigars than the one he 
gave me as I was leaving home the last 
time. 

The other habits that you object to are 
just failings, and they are so nearly uni¬ 
versal among the wearers of trousers that 
their absence would indicate something 
radically wrong. I don’t know why it is, 
and I don’t think the scientific fellows 
ever tried to explain it, though they have 
wasted their lives in investigating things 
of much less importance, but the fact re¬ 
mains that few men can be really truly 
comfortable unless they can get their feet 
off the floor when they sit down. I have 
a kind of a notion that it’s one of na- 
116 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




Lire’s methods of equalizing the circula¬ 
tion of the blood. Possibly women had 
the same instinct originally, but ages of 
cruel repression seem to have effaced it. 
At any rate, it doesn’t appear to worry 
them, while it does have a pretty consider¬ 
able to do with the cheerfulness of the 
other sex. I think I have pointed out to 
you the importance of making a man 
comfortable in order to keep him con¬ 
tentedly at home. Well, my dear, pedal 
elevation is one of the means to that end. 
I don’t suppose you know that Abraham 
Lincoln used to study law with his feet 
on the mantelpiece. No? Well, he did, 
and it was one of the surest indications 
of his greatness. But I wouldn’t en- 
UZ 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




courage Bill to go that far. It’s all right 
in a bachelor apartment, but I’ll admit 
that it’s neither pretty nor dignified in 
the home. Nor is such an extreme eleva¬ 
tion necesssary to his comfort. A chair 
will do, any old chair, but don’t deny 
poor William that solace for his evening 
hours. 

You’ve probably read somewhere that 
order is nature’s first law. Some old- 
timer with a reputation for wisdom to 
maintain is said to have been responsible 
for it. It may be so, but my experience 
with nature forces me to doubt. How¬ 
ever, that’s neither here nor there. The 
point I want to make is that whether na¬ 
ture has any such an ordinance or not, 
118 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




first or last, it’s doggoned certain that 
there’s no law of that kind in the statute 
books of man. You notice I don’t say 
mankind. I mean man, just plain man, 
with whiskers and starched shirts. With 
women it’s different. Order is not only 
their first law, but it’s the first paragraph 
in their constitution. That tidy must 
hang just so, that sofa pillow must stand 
exactly in this position, for the land’s 
sake, I wonder who raised that window 
shade so high. Disorder is more truly 
masculine, and in this respect man is at 
his best, or, rather, his worst, at home. 
I am mighty sorry about this; honestly 
I am. It ain’t right. We really oughtn’t 
to lay our umbrellas and newspapers and 
119 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


cigar ashes and other belongings indis¬ 
criminately around the house; we 
oughtn’t to muss things up so; but Lord 
bless you, little girl, we just naturally 
can’t help it. It’s part of the cussedness 
that’s in our blood. Bill ain’t any worse 
than the rest of us. Reason with him, 
my dear. Show him how much it adds 
to your work and your worry. Show him 
how tremendously important it is from 
the feminine standpoint that everything 
should be in its proper place and stand 
at the proper angle. But go at him 
gently; tell him about it when he’s feel¬ 
ing in a good humor. We’re all aware 
of this failing, but most of us are apt to 
bristle up when you come at us too sud- 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




den. Maybe you can educate it out of 
Bill. I hope so, little girl; I really do. 
But go slow. It’s a big job. 

You see, my dear, it all comes back to 
the very first thing I told you, that men 
ain’t much account, anyhow, and you’ve 
got to take them pretty much as they 
come, faults and failings and all, and do 
the best you can with the material. Your 
Bill’s a good deal above the average, but 
he’s just a man, and you can’t hope to 
make him all that you think he ought 
to be. If you did you probably wouldn’t 
like the job yourself after you’d fin¬ 
ished and got a square look at it. I 
wouldn’t countenance any vices—don’t 
believe Bill has any—but a wise wife will 


121 



'HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




shut her eyes to many of the faults and 
failings of her husband, make virtues of 
others, and rub out the rest like your 
mother used to do my headaches. It’s 
getting late, and I’ve got a hard day’s 
work before me to-morrow, so good 
night. Your loving old dad, 

John Sneed. 

P. S.—I opened this to inclose the ad¬ 
dress of my cigar dealer at home. Tell 
Bill if he’ll ask this man for my favorite 
brand he’ll get a smoke that will make 
the sun shine on a cloudy day. J. S. 


122 



VII 


Keeping uf) the Social Procession 


M y dear little girl.-—i 

have just been a witness to a 
tragedy. Within sight from 
the window of my room in the little coun¬ 
try hotel where I am stopping to-day is a 
pretty cottage. I don’t know how it looks 
from the street, for the rear elevation, 
as the architects say, is turned my way, 
but what I can see of it from this side 
leads me to believe that the owner is in 
a little better than moderate circum- 
123 



WE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




stances, as circumstances go in a town of 
this size. He has a large and commodi¬ 
ous back yard in which he is raising chick¬ 
ens for pleasure. I know it’s for pleas¬ 
ure, because he graciously permits his 
wife to do all the work. At least, I sup¬ 
pose it’s his wife. Anyhow, she wears 
a faded red sunbonnet, one of those Japo- 
American kimonos that stop just a little 
too quick, and an air of authority that 
is quite unmistakable. There are a num¬ 
ber of pens or runs, or whatever they call 
them, in this back yard, and each is oc¬ 
cupied by a lot of birds of a feather. 
One pen, however, is evidently reserved 
for a bunch in which the owner takes 
special pride. I don’t know what kind 
124 



rnHE MAKING OF A 


1 


SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




of chickens they are—polled Angus, 
maybe—but they’re swell birds all right, 
and they are fed on the fat of the land, 
while their neighbors must be content 
with the crumbs that fall from Dives’ 
table. 

In one of the adjoining pens, however, 
was an ambitious young pullet who 
thought she was something of a swell 
herself and wanted to get into the push 
mighty bad. She was bigger and hand¬ 
somer and could cackle louder than some 
of the aristocrats on the other side of 
the fence, so why not? After sizing up 
the height of the barrier she took a run¬ 
ning jump, butted into the wire, and fell 
to the ground with a great squawking and 

125 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


flopping of wings. Not discouraged by 
failure, she tried again and again, and 
finally got high enough and sailed ma¬ 
jestically over into the charmed circle. 
Then the lady of the kimono emerged 
from the cottage, and, after much shoo¬ 
ing and dodging, caught the pullet and 
put her back in her own pen. Three times 
this performance was repeated while I 
watched, but when the mistress of the 
robes came sweeping down the path for 
the fourth time I saw there was going to 
be something doing in that back yard. 
And there was. Grasping Miss Pullet 
firmly by the neck, she gave a simple 
twist of the wrist, and just now the fra¬ 
grant odor of fried chicken comes steal- 
126 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




ing, gently stealing through my open 
casement. 

I may be away off the track, but I have 
got the impression from sundry remarks 
in your letters of recent date that you 
are beginning to fly pretty high in a so¬ 
cial way. I want you to have all the fun 
you can. Lord knows, dearie, I wouldn’t 
cut you out of any real pleasure; not for 
worlds. And yet—well, it reminds me 
of the time when I used to think I was 
getting a bushel of sport skating around 
a hole in the ice trying to see how close I 
could get to the ragged edges. One day 
I broke my record, and, when I got over 
the spell of pneumonia, I couldn’t for the 
life of me understand how I could have 
127 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




seen anything funny in that form of 
amusement. It’s a good deal that way 
with this social whirl business. Now, I 
don’t want you to misunderstand me, my 
dear. Society is all right. I don’t want 
you to get me mixed up with those long¬ 
haired and frayed-trouser nincompoops 
who claim to think society is one of the 
devices of the gentleman with the red 
tights and the overheated griddle. Not 
on your life. I’ve got nothing against 
society. It would be a mighty lonesome 
world without it. What would our news¬ 
papers do?—but that’s getting away from 
the main road. The point I want to get 
into your pretty little thinking box is that 
society is a good thing so long as you stay 
128 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE ^ 

in your own class. Yes, yes, my dear, I 
know you’re as good as anybody else. 
My personal opinion is that you’re a 
whole lot better than anybody else, ex¬ 
cept your mother. But you haven’t got 
quite as much money as some people I 
know, and that’s the thing that makes 
class distinctions in this country so far 
as society, strictly speaking, is concerned. 
Take us Americans up and down the so¬ 
cial ladder and we’re pretty much the 
same. Mrs. Smith on the bottom round 
is just as good and sweet and sensible, 
possibly just as refined and accomplished, 
as Mrs. Van Twiller at the top. The dif¬ 
ference is purely a matter of dollars. 
And that brings me around to you and 


129 





T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


Billy. Now I don’t know anybody on 
this green earth better entitled by beauty 
and grace and intelligence to shine in the 
very tip-top heaven of society than is my 
daughter. That’s no taffy, little girl. 
That’s the real goods, straight as a foot 
rule. But these things are not accepted 
as a standard of measurement. It’s 
Billy’s rating in Dun’s or Bradstreet’s 
that does the work. If he’s Ai in the 
financial register he’s pretty well qualified 
to rank as Ai in the social register. The 
trouble with Billy is that he isn’t Ai or 
even Zi. He might sing the old Sunday 
school song, “Is My Name Written 
There?” and get a negative answer, for 
Billy trains with the great majority and 
130 



T he making of a ^ 

doesn’t figure in the financial reports. 
Consequently his place and your place in 
the social scale is some distance below 
the top. And the quicker you get your 
location surveyed and make up your mind 
to play in your own yard until your bank 
account justifies a move the better it will 
be for both of you in more ways than 
can be indicated by dollars and cents. 

In the first place, my dear, while what 
you have is the principal qualification for 
social position, it’s mainly what you spend 
that puts you into the swim. You may 
have millions and cut no ice in society 
unless you can let loose of them pretty 
freely. On the other hand, you may 
blow in ten thousand a year on a five 





T 


HE MAKJNg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


thousand income and manage to hold your 
head above water in the ten thousand dol¬ 
lar class for a while. But just for a 
while, mind you. And that’s what causes 
three-fourths of the evils that result from 
a woman’s ambition to be like one of the 
candles on a birthday cake, a bright and 
shining light on the upper crust. You 
get an idea into your dear little head that 
you’ve got to cut just as big a splurge as 
Mrs. Midas who lives around the corner 
on the boulevard. You must wear just 
as fine clothes and just as many of them, 
give cerise teas just as often, and do all 
the regulation stunts just as elaborately 
or else you’ll die of mortification. 

You forget, or refuse to remember, 
132 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


that Mrs. Midas can afford it. She’s got 
dollars to throw at the doodle bugs, if she 
wants to, and never miss them. You 
haven’t. What’s all right for her is all 
wrong for you. Yes, I know, Billy may 
be willing—he may even give you a boost. 
Maybe he’s so doggoned proud of you 
that he just naturally wants to see you 
make all the folks around the corner sit 
up and take notice. I wouldn’t blame him 
for feeling that way, ’deed I wouldn’t; 
but, my little girl, let me tell you: there’s 
many a man standing off in a corner 
watching the social triumphs of his wife 
with a smile on his face, while his finger 
nails are cutting deep into the palms of 
his hands as he wonders where he’s going 
133 





T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


to raise the money to pay for it. Many a 
man just grins and saws wood, but a dis¬ 
play of teeth won’t increase anybody’s in¬ 
come materially, and one may smile and 
smile and be a bankrupt still. No, honey, 
there’s just one certain end to social ambi¬ 
tion that goes ahead of one’s income, and 
that’s what the old-time newspaper re¬ 
porters used to call a dull thud. Some¬ 
thing’s going to drop, sure as shooting, 
and if I was making a book on it I’d be 
willing to make it a hundred to one shot 
that it would be you and Billy. I’ve seen 
many a man and many a woman come 
down like that, and mighty few of them, 
mighty few of them, ever got able to 
climb back up again. Poor Smith! He 


134 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




was a good fellow, but his wife ruined 
him. That’s what they say every time. I 
don’t want anybody to say that about my 
daughter. 

You see, it’s just as I told you. The 
trouble ain’t with society; it’s the getting 
out of your class. It’s the doing like Miss 
Pullet—flying over the fence into com¬ 
pany where she didn’t belong. If you’re 
going to get along in this world nice and 
comfortable and happy, you’ve got to 
recognize your own limitations. I never 
play poker with a man who starts the 
game with a $5 ante. No, siree. I po¬ 
litely but firmly draw out. He ain’t in 
my class, and I’ve got sense enough to 
know it. My bay mare is as fine an 
135 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




animal as ever came off the blue grass, 
and when I’m out for a spin with her 
nothing on four legs is going to pass me. 
But if a man comes along with a sixty- 
horsepower automobile, do you think I’m 
going to try to keep alongside of him? 
Not much, Liza Jane. I pull to one side 
and wait till the dust settles, then I trot 
ahead just as contented as if I had won 
the Derby. And I don’t have any hard 
feelings against the man in the auto, 
either. If he’s got the money to pay for 
it why shouldn’t he have one and ride in 
it, too? I would. 

And it’s just the same to you, little girl, 
and the swells around the corner. 
They’re nice people. There’s good and 
136 



-*HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




bad among them, just as there are on the 
side streets, but they’ll average up just 
as high as any of us. No use to rail at 
the faults of the so-called high society. 
That’s mostly sour grapes. They have 
their faults good and plenty. So have all 
of us. But they are able to set a pace 
that it would be foolish for you or me to 
try to keep up with. Now, don’t under¬ 
stand me to say that you are or have been 
trying to. I am just endeavoring to 
place a few cold facts before you so that 
you can get them into your noggin and 
assimilated before the temptation to fly 
over the fence really comes to you. 
Whenever you feel a very strong desire 
to blow in more of Billy’s money than 



'HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




he can afford, I want you to think of the 
lady of the kimono and the fate of the as¬ 
piring pullet. Maybe some day, if you 
are wise now, you and Billy will have 
money to burn. Then you will be justi¬ 
fied in setting a match to a little of it and 
cutting as wide a swath in society as you 
please, provided you do not lose sight of 
the fact that you have a home and a hus¬ 
band, possibly children, who are of more 
importance to you and your happiness 
than all the social victories you could win 
in a thousand years. Get all the pleasure 
you can out of life, honey, but be mighty 
sure that Billy’s got the price, and got it 
to spare. Your loving father, 

John Sneed. 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




P. S.—I have just received a personal 
and confidential communication from 
your mother which tickles me almost to 
death. Grandpa Sneed. Gee! 

J. s. 


139 



VIII 

'When His Via Comes to Visit 

M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRL:—I 
don’t wonder that the coming 
visit of William’s mother 
makes you a little bit nervous. It is an 
ordeal that nearly every young wife looks 
forward to with a certain degree of ap¬ 
prehension, if not dread. She feels that 
she is going to be held up for inspection, 
that herself and her methods are about to 
be subjected to a critical analysis by a 
stern and prejudiced household martinet, 
140 



T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




a perfect paragon of domestic virtues. 
His ma has probably been extolled as 
the originator and chief exponent of the 
fine art of running a home, the one wom¬ 
an who knows exactly how to do things. 
Of course she’s nervous. But, bless your 
dear little heart, there’s no real reason 
for it. Bill’s mother, like every other 
man’s mother, is about one-fourth woman 
and three-fourths imagination. Did you 
ever notice how big a man looks when 
he’s coming toward you through a fog? 
You think it’s the boss giant at the circus 
until he gets up close and then you find 
it’s little Smithkins, who weighs no 
pounds with his winter overcoat on. A 
man, no matter what his age, sees his 



OB 


THE MAKIWg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


mother through the mists of childhood 
and youth, and the suns of his life shin¬ 
ing through the haze envelope her in a 
radiance that to him is pretty near divine. 
There’s nothing wrong about that, my 
dear. On the contrary, it’s one of the 
most beautiful facts in creation. But 
when other people look at his mother they 
see just a common, ordinary little woman, 
no better and no worse than the average. 
You’ll find that to be the case when Bill’s 
ma steps in. You won’t be able to see 
any halo around her head. You won’t be 
able to discover her wonderful superiority 
to the rest of womankind. Bill sees it, 
but you will find that she has her faults 
and her failings like other people, and 
142 



rpHE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


*55 


her failings are more likely to give you 
trouble than her virtues. 

And that brings up a question that I 
have pondered over pretty considerable 
and never found but one answer to it. 
Why is it you never hear anything about 
the wife’s mother-in-law? That’s the 
question. The mother-in-law has been a 
subject for jokes and satire and derision 
for goodness only knows how many thou¬ 
sands of years, but it’s always the man’s 
mother-in-law. One would think there 
was only one kind of them. They poke 
fun at this one kind in the funny papers 
and the almanacs and on the stage, and 
they don’t seem to have ever heard that 
there’s another brand of mother-in-law, 
M3 



WE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




just as numerous, just as busy, and once 
in a while just as tactless and meddling. 
The wife’s mother-in-law is absolutely 
unknown in literature, while reams and 
volumes and whole libraries have been 
written about the husband’s mother-in- 
law. Why is it? There’s just one an¬ 
swer. It is because men have been doing 
all the writing and the only mother-in- 
law they know anything about is their 
own. That their own mothers are also 
mothers-in-law seems never to have oc¬ 
curred to them. If it had there probably 
would be one subject less for the joke 
writer, and one of the greatest institu¬ 
tions in the world would have had a bet¬ 
ter reputation. For it is a fact, my dear, 


144 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE & 

that mothers-in-law, taking them in a 
bunch, are one of the most beneficent gifts 
of a mysterious but all-wise Providence. 
There are exceptions that seem to justify 
the attacks made upon the class, but they 
are exceptions, and even with them, in 
nine cases out of ten, it’s the smart Alex¬ 
ander sons-in-law who are most to blame. 
So, while I have wondered why we have 
but one variety of mother-in-law in litera¬ 
ture, I have always been mighty glad the 
other kind remained undiscovered. May¬ 
be Providence has something to do with 
that, too. At any rate, little girl, getting 
back to your own case, your mother-in- 
law is nothing to be afraid of or to stand 
in awe of. Her idiosyncrasies or pecca- 
145 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


dillos or, getting down to plain Ameri¬ 
can, her crankiness, may give you some 
trouble, but all the same she’s a mighty 
important factor in the making of your 
domestic happiness, and if you play your 
cards right she’ll prove a blessing that 
you’ll be thankful for all your days. I 
don’t know Bill’s ma, but I’m willing to 
bet dollars against cold muffins on this 
proposition. 

In the first place, you want to recog¬ 
nize the fact that she is Bill’s mother, 
just the same to him as your mother is 
to you, and you must respect his feelings 
in regard to her. In the second place, 
you mustn’t forget that, being his mother, 
she naturally thinks a heap of him, and 
146 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




may be just a little bit inclined to the 
idea that no girl is quite good enough 
for him. Also, you should bear in mind 
that, like Bill Smith’s chum, she’s “older 
and had more ’sperience” than you. So 
all you’ve got to do, little girl, is to re¬ 
member these three points and act ac¬ 
cordingly. It lacks a whole lot of being 
as easy to do it as it is to say it. I’ll admit 
that. But it’s worth the price. The love 
and good will and help of his mother is a 
mighty precious possession, and you can’t 
go to too much trouble to get it and keep 
it. She can be a friend to you like unto 
no other friend except your own mother, 
and the time will often come when you 
will thank Heaven that Bill’s ma is by 
147 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


<J£ 


your side, holding your hand and helping 
you over the rough places. 

I don’t doubt that he has bragged about 
her a good deal. He’d be a funny son if 
he didn’t. He’s told you what a wonder¬ 
ful manager she is, and how she can cook, 
laws-a-massy! how she can cook. There 
never was anybody could make biscuits 
and mince pies and doughnuts like Bill’s 
ma. But don’t you let that worry you. 
There’s just as much imagination about 
ma’s pies as there is about ma from his 
viewpoint. There’s a halo about her bis¬ 
cuit, too, but nobody can see it but Bill. 
I’m pretty sure you can make just as good 
ones, and I know your mother can beat 
her, hands down. But don’t you let on. 

148 



T he making of a _ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE & 

It won’t do to tamper recklessly with his 
ideals. Wait till she comes and ask her 
to show you how. That will please Bill 
and tickle the old lady half to death. If 
she isn’t any great shakes as a cook Wil¬ 
liam will find it out for himself then, and 
coming in that way it won’t hurt him. 
He’ll just think his mother is losing her 
grip, and he’ll be all the prouder of you. 

On the other hand, if she is really way 
up in G in the kitchen, drop your cooking 
school methods like a hot flatiron and get 
next to her system. I know that you 
learned a good deal from your mother 
that the culinary professor wasn’t able to 
get away from you, though the Lord 
knows she tried hard enough—and to my 
*49 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


notion there isn’t any woman on earth 
who can come under the wire alongside 
your mother when it comes to cooking; 
but that isn’t the point. The main busi¬ 
ness of a wife is to please her husband, 
just as it should be the main business of 
a husband to please his wife, and if his 
mother knows a trick or two that he 
thinks great you can’t do anything bet¬ 
ter to please him than to make them 
yours. As a matter of fact, she probably 
has a whole bunch of housekeeping tricks 
up her sleeve that it will be worth your 
while to get acquainted with. House¬ 
keeping is a science, but it lacks more of 
being a fixed science than any I know of, 
and no woman can have bossed a home 
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~*HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




as long as Bill’s ma has without accu¬ 
mulating a lot of facts not down in the 
text books, besides making some original 
discoveries of her own. So I’d earnestly 
advise you, little girl, to let her know at 
once that you want to take a post-gradu¬ 
ate course under her. Somewhere in your 
copy book or your grammar you’ve seen 
the saying that imitation is the sincerest 
flattery, and I ain’t letting out any State 
secrets when I tell you that sincere flat¬ 
tery makes more friends than a stuffed 
club. Go to school to the old lady, and 
you’ll get closer to her heart in three days 
than you could in six months sitting up 
in the parlor and running a gabfest. At 
the same time, William will be climbing 



'HE MAKINQ OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




the golden ladder to the seventh heaven 
of delight, and if he isn’t already certain 
about it he’ll be convinced that his little 
wife is the greatest that ever happened. 

But that isn’t all. When his ma comes 
take her right in out of the wet, figura¬ 
tively speaking. Don’t drop her down 
on a spindle-legged chair in the drawing 
room. That, also, is figuratively speak¬ 
ing, for I’m pretty certain you haven’t 
got a drawing room, and I hope to con¬ 
science you haven’t got any spindle-legged 
chairs. I remember once—but that’s get¬ 
ting off the main road. What I mean 
to say is draw her into your arms just as 
you would your own mother. Make her 
feel at home. Make her feel, in fact, that 

152 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




William’s wife is her daughter and 
worthy in every way to be so considered. 
Show her the respect at all times that is 
due to her age, and if she has any cranky 
notions humor them. She’ll have them, 
all right. She’ll be a wonder for sure if 
she doesn’t. Mighty few people can 
come down the homestretch of life with¬ 
out developing a few kinks that try the 
patience of others. Even your old daddy 
has them. Yes, I have. Why, I bet if 
you could get one of these here radium 
photographs of my mental process it 
would look like one of those wiggledy 
hairpins you use to keep your sunshine 
from getting loose. That’s right, my dear. 
So don’t let her kinks bother you. You 
153 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL 


WIFE 


can’t straighten them, and they won’t do 
you any harm if you let them alone. Let 
her see, too, that her boy is in good 
hands. That’s an improtant point, for 
it’s something she’ll be most anxious 
about, but it will be an easy job for you; 
rather it will be no job at all, for I’m 
mighty certain he couldn’t be in better 
hands. He’ll say so himself. If he didn’t 
I’d be after him with something large and 
heavy to throw. 

Just a minute now for the other side. 
A man’s love for his mother begins at his 
birth and lasts until his death. It is not 
the great consuming passion of his life. 
That is reserved for the other woman 
who becomes his wife. But, no matter 
154 



"THE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




how much greater his love may be for his 
mate, it never eclipses that earlier affec¬ 
tion for his mother. Side by side they 
should move, the sun and the moon of 
his worship, to the end of his days. They 
should, but sometimes they don’t. Some¬ 
times the greater love wanes and van¬ 
ishes. The lesser love is imperishable. 
Let friction develop between the wife and 
the mother and, though the man may be 
true to his allegiance to his wife, though 
he may stand by her side and take her 
part, that other love will always be tug¬ 
ging at his heart. No man can be happy 
under such circumstances. No wife who 
loves her husband can be happy when he 
is unhappy. Don’t take any such risks, 
155 





T he makjnq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


little girl. Billy’s ma should be your 
friend. Make her your friend. Keep her 
your friend. That’s all now. Good-bye, 
honey. Your affectionate father, 

John Sneed. 

P. S.—For Heaven’s sake, don’t let 
Bill see this letter. J. S. 



IX 


The First Baby 


M Y DEAR LITTLE GIRL:—I 
am just plum tickled to death. 
I’m so pleased I don’t know 
which one of the boys I am. I’m so 
puffed up I don’t know whether I’m com¬ 
ing or going. I met an old friend down 
the street a little while ago, and he says 
to me: “John Sneed, what’s the matter 
with you? You’re steppin’ as high as a 
filly just off the grass. Been elected 
Governor, or somebody leave you a for- 
157 



^ rnHE MAKmg OF A 

^ £ SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

tune?” I reckon that’s the way I look, 
and I’m sure it’s the way I feel. Some¬ 
body leave me a fortune! Well, I guess 
yes. Not a measly bunch of money. Oh, 
my, no! Something better than gold or 
greenbacks or checks. I’ve always heard 
it said that there’s no fool like a young 
father except an old grandfather, and 
I’m beginning to believe there’s something 
in it. I went around this morning and 
bargained for a box of candy, a red bal¬ 
loon, and a drum before I tumbled to the 
fact that I was a few years premature, 
but you can eat the candy yourself, and 
the other things will keep. That telegram 
really knocked me off my feet. Of 
course, I was expecting it. And also, of 

158 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


«a5 


course, I knew the chances were about 
six to a half dozen that it would be a boy. 
Still, when I opened that yellow envelope 
and my eye dropped on the word “boy” I 
felt like throwing up my hat and holler¬ 
ing like a kid. Maybe I did. Anyhow, 
I know I had a $5 gold piece in my pocket 
that disappeared just about that time, and 
I have a hazy recollection of a messenger 
trotting away with an ecstatic grin on his 
dirty face. I wonder if Bill is taking it 
as hard! Probably not. Probably he’s 
just standing around with his hands in 
his pockets, rising up and down on his 
toes and beaming like a seraph upon 
everybody, from the cook to the man with 
a gas bill. I never saw a Cheshire cat 
159 



'HE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




and never saw anybody else who had, but 
if there is such a thing I bet it would go 
out of the grinning business for keeps if 
it could get a square look at Bill’s face 
just about now. I know how it is. I 
was just that way when your brother 
came. But a grandfather’s feeling is 
different. When a fellow finds that he is 
a papa for the first time his delight is so 
mixed with embarrassment that he just 
looks silly and feels more so. Grandpa 
isn’t troubled with embarrassment. He 
may act foolish, but he doesn’t feel that 
way, and in consequence he gets a great 
deal more fun out of the situation than 
papa does. 

And you’re going to name it John Wil- 
160 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




liam. My, my, but that’s a combination 
that ought to conquer the world! There 
are a good many Johns and Williams 
scattered around, and there’s some of 
them I wouldn’t be proud to have in my 
family, but, take them as they run, the 
fellows with such handles are a little bit 
above the average. I don’t care what 
Shakespeare or anybody else says, there’s 
a whole lot in a name, and when you sad¬ 
dle a kid with Algernon or Alphonso or 
something like that he’s got a handicap 
that’s pretty sure to place him with the 
also rans unless he’s got more get up 
and git than the majority. Many a good 
man has been held below his level by the 
weight of his name. But John or Wil- 
161 





T 


HE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


liam! Everybody knows what they are 
and what they stand for. There’s no non¬ 
sense about them. They don’t make you 
think of curling irons, or ruffled shirts or 
spats. No, indeed! They give you an 
impression of backbone, strong arms, and 
a broad chest, with a head rising above 
that is full of common, everyday brains, 
the kind of brains that does things worth 
while. The first impressions of other 
people have a good deal to do with a 
man’s success or failure in life, and a fel¬ 
low’s name has more to do with fixing 
first impressions than most people realize. 
I’ve always been mighty glad that my 
name was John. It’s been a whole lot of 
help to me, and I’m sure pleased that my 
162 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




first grandson can start out on the road 
without any dead weight to carry. Like¬ 
wise I’m proud that he’s named after me. 
Bill can toot his own horn. 

It’s a great thing to be a grandfather. 
It’s even a great thing to be a father. 
But greater, much greater, than either it 
is to be a mother. There isn’t anything 
on earth as fine or as beautiful as a young 
mother, my little girl, and I’m certainly 
glad that my daughter has joined the 
ranks of the canonized. You’ve started 
out right, honey. I don’t care a conti¬ 
nental ding what they say about woman’s 
mission. They can get up in the clubs 
and twitter all they please about women 
doing this or women doing that for the 
163 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


uplift of humanity. That’s all right 
enough, but it shouldn’t obscure the di¬ 
vine fact that woman’s greatest and 
grandest and holiest mission is mother¬ 
hood. Let all the other little missions 
trail along behind if they want to. Lots 
of them are fine, mighty fine. Your old 
daddy may be a little old-fashioned, but 
he ain’t a knot on a dead log. He don’t 
believe in scotching wheels of progress 
of any kind, and whatever will help the 
women folk to keep away up at the head 
of the procession will find me a backing 
it. But, all the same, they shouldn’t be 
allowed to get in the way of the main 
business of the sex. And that business, 
my dear, is likely to give a woman about 
164 



T 


IIE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




all she wants to do for a few years. The 
unmarried women and the old married 
women, as well as the maidens all for¬ 
lorn, can put in all the time they want on 
side issues, but the young mother has her 
work cut out for her, and I’m pretty sure 
the Lord’s going to be satisfied if she at¬ 
tends to that. She can do more to uplift 
humanity by raising her share of it at 
home than she can do in a hundred years 
of effort in any other direction. That’s 
the way I look at it, little girl. Wifehood 
is a grand and noble thing, but it’s just 
the introduction to the real purpose of a 
woman’s life. Wifehood without mother¬ 
hood is a good deal like a person going 
into the vestibule of a church and stop- 

165 



^ mHE MAKINg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

ping 1 there. It may be a beautiful vesti¬ 
bule, with floor of mosaics, with marble 
columns and imposing arches, but, never¬ 
theless, it’s only the entrance to the great 
auditorium. 

Anybody who gets no further than the 
vestibule misses the crowning glory of 
the edifice. That reminds me of a story 
I’ve heard about an old couple who came 
up from Arkansas to St. Louis to visit 
the World’s Fair. They were a nice old 
couple, but they hadn’t been around very 
much. However, they got out to the 
grounds all right, bought their tickets, 
and went through the gates. Then they 
paused in some bewilderment. There was 
so much before them that they didn’t 
166 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

know which way to turn. After twisting 
his neck for a few minutes the old gen¬ 
tleman spied a lofty portal over to his 
right. There were many people passing 
through, and above the arch he read the 
big-lettered word “Exit.” “Well, 
Maria,” he said, finally, “that looks pretty 
nice. I reckon we’d better see the exit 
first.” Then they joined the crowd and 
found themselves outside. They say the 
old man is still talking about the way 
them fellers down at St. Louis swindled 
him. 

Yes, little girl, I’m glad you have 
started right, and not alone because you 
are thus filling the highest mission of 
womanhood. I am glad because you are 
167 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


laying solid the foundations of happiness. 
You and William might get along swim¬ 
mingly together all of your days, but you 
would miss most of the pleasure, most of 
the beauty, most of the glory of life if 
you passed down the great road unaccom¬ 
panied. For home, my dear, is never 
truly a home until its walls echo to the 
prattle of childish voices. The love of a 
husband for his wife or of a wife for her 
husband never wells up from the deepest 
depths of the heart until their hearts are 
filled and expanded by love of their little 
ones. Love without children is like a 
song without words, beautiful it may be, 
but meaningless and incomplete. I don’t 
set myself up for an authority on matri- 
168 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




mony, but if I was going to write an 
essay on how to be happy when married 
I would put down just one word as the 
sum and substance of the first principle, 
and that one word would be “children.” 
They are the tie that binds harder and 
faster than any words the greatest preach¬ 
er on earth can say; theirs is the love 
which cements and makes perfect that 
other love, and down at the bottom of 
most of the domestic dissensions which 
have their culmination in the courts is the 
lack of that bond which nature demands. 

And that isn’t all, little girl. A home 
without children is like a rudderless ship 
drifting aimlessly from no place to no¬ 
where. It may be stanch and it’s cargo 
169 





T he MAKiNg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


may be gold, but it has no destination and 
it never gets there, as a Milesian friend 
of mine would say. It is children, my 
dear, that give purpose to life. It is 
children that take its bearings, set its 
course, and fix its haven. Little John 
William has given you something to live 
for, something to work for, something to 
spur your ambitions. Without him you 
have simply existed from day to day; 
with him you have a definite aim. Al¬ 
ready I can see you planning his future, 
and it is the working out of such plans 
that makes the perfect man and the per¬ 
fect woman. There is no discipline for 
the character like the joys and troubles 
which go with the responsibilities of 
170 



rpHE MAKING OF A 


1 


SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




fatherhood and motherhood. Oh, yes, 
the troubles will be there, along with the 
worries and the vexations and the tintin¬ 
nabulation of the slipper on the—oh, yes, 
they’re on the programme. But bless 
your heart, little girl, that’s part of the 
game, the diversions which drive monot¬ 
ony away, which keep you keyed up and 
watchful. When things go too easy a 
man’s likely to go to sleep on his job. 
Likewise a woman. Therefore the good 
Lord invented trouble. 

Present my congratulations to Bill, 
keep oceans of love for yourself, and ten¬ 
der my most profound regards to John 
William. My, my, my, how anxious I 
am to see him! But, say, whatever you 




SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


do, don’t tell me it looks like his grand¬ 
father. Not yet, my child, not yet. Your 


loving dad, 


John Sneed. 


P. S.—I almost forgot something I 
particularly wanted to say, and that is, 
while I believe in children, I’m pretty 
well convinced it’s possible to get too 
much of a good thing. I have always 
felt more pity than admiration for the 
celebrated old lady who lived in a shoe. 


j, s. 




X 


Raising a Family 


M y dear little girl.-—i 

don’t wonder that you feel a 
terrible weight of responsibility 
resting on you just now. This matter of 
raising a family—I reckon they taught 
you to say “rearing” at college—is a seri¬ 
ous proposition any way you take it. But 
I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. 
There will be a whole lot of bridges on 
the way, but you won’t have to cross but 
one at a time, and you won’t have to cross 
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T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


any until you get to it. They’ll wait for 
you, all right. They never get washed 
away by floods. And they’re never as 
hard to get over as they look to be at a 
distance. So don’t fret about the future, 
my dear. You remember the old house¬ 
wife saying—“Here’s Monday, to-mor¬ 
row’s Tuesday, and the next day’s 
Wednesday, a whole week gone and 
nothin’ done.” That’s the spirit that 
makes some old before their time, that 
puts crow’s feet in skin that ought to be 
smooth as silk. To-day’s labors and to¬ 
day’s troubles are enough for to-day. 
And yet, honey, it’s all right and proper 
to look ahead to plan and consider, but 
not to worry. It’s all right and proper to 



rjTHE MAKING OF A 


1 


SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


figure on little John William’s future, but 
it’s all wrong to let your plans pile up 
into burdens on the present. Just keep 
that idea fixed in your little noggin, while 
I give you some homemade views on the 
raising of John William. 

In the first place, little girl, you want to 
recognize the fact that your baby is a 
boy, and the main object of your training 
should be to make a man of him. If he 
lives long enough he’ll get the requisite 
number of years, he’ll get big enough to 
wear full grown trousers, and he’ll find it 
necessary to call on the barber occasion¬ 
ally, all without much help from you. 
But it takes more than that to make a man. 
You can see lots of very good imitations 



'HE MAKINQ OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




of men walking up and down the street 
any day, but real men are scarce, and I 
want my grandson to be a real man—a 
man with backbone and self-reliance and 
courage; upright, truthful, and just; 
square in his dealings with others; hav¬ 
ing the fear of the Lord but no other 
fear in his heart; courteous and gentle 
and kind, particularly to women, old men, 
and children; lending not only a hand, but 
a head and a heart to those in distress. 
It takes all that to make a real man, a 
genuine gentleman, and I’ve seen mighty 
few of that kind in this world who 
weren’t the product of mothers who knew 
their business. Once in a long while the 
good Lord, for some purpose of His own, 
176 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




turns out a first class man without any 
apparent human help, but it isn’t often, 
and it won’t do for mother and father to 
lazily and piously fold their hands and 
trust in Providence. That kind of trust 
ain’t any account until you have done the 
best you can with the job. 

So, honey, it’s up to you and William 
to make a man out of the kid, and the 
biggest share of the making falls on you, 
for in the raising of a family a father 
isn’t usually good for much except the 
heavy standing around. At any rate, 
he won’t cut any figure in the game for 
several years yet, and the time to com¬ 
mence work is right now. You can’t be¬ 
gin the training of a child too early. I’ve 
1 77 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


seen many a baby hopelessly spoiled be¬ 
fore it was a month old, and the first one 
is much more apt to get a false start than 
the later ones. It’s wonderful how much 
intelligence there is in a little, bald- 
headed, red-faced, stump-nosed kid not 
three days old, and it is equally remark¬ 
able how easy it is to get that intelligence 
working in the wrong direction at that 
early age. Little John William says to 
himself, “I find by experience that if I 
holler long enough and loud enough I’ll 
get anything I want.” Therefore he hol¬ 
lers, and unless you give him to under¬ 
stand, gently but firmly, that this theory 
of his is entirely incorrect and based upon 
false premises, he’ll continue to holler, 
178 



T he making of a ^ 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

and you and William will have to dance to 
his whistle through many a weary day 
and many a sleepless night. But the 
worst feature of this false start is not 
in the discomfort it brings to his parents. 
It is the influence it has upon his charac¬ 
ter. For character building, my dear, 
like any other building, has to begin at 
the foundation, and defects in the founda¬ 
tion are more dangerous and harder to 
remedy than faults anywhere in the super¬ 
structure. So begin on little John Wil¬ 
liam now, honey, before he gets the bit 
between his teeth, or his gums, and runs 
away with you. 

When I was a boy I had a colt once 
that I was very proud of. It was a jim 
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T 


HE MAKmg OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


dandy colt, pretty as a picture and smart 
as a steel trap; but I waited too long to 
break it, let it have its own way until it 
wouldn’t have any other way, and the 
first time I tried to ride it it struck off 
across the meadow like a delayed tele¬ 
gram. All my pulling and sawing and 
shouting didn’t make a bit of impression 
on him, and he went on and on, getting 
faster all the time, until he came to a 
stake and rider rail fence. Then he stuck 
his forefeet in the ground and stopped. 
But I didn’t. I just sailed on over that 
fence and landed in the middle of a black¬ 
berry patch. That blamed colt never 
would let anybody ride him. But if I’d 
commenced with him at the right time he 
180 



WE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




would have made one of the best horses 
that ever came off the blue grass. And 
it’s the same way with a child. Let him 
once get the idea fixed in his head that 
what he wants he must have, and that 
papa and mama are just overgrown serv¬ 
ants, whose business is to see that he gets 
it, and it’s ten chances to one that he will 
never be either a man or a mouse or a 
long-tailed rat, as the saying goes. No, 
my dear, when John William hollers with¬ 
out apparent reason, just let him holler. 
It won’t hurt him. On the contrary, it’s 
a wise provision of nature for the expan¬ 
sion and development of the lungs. And 
while he’s taking physical culture exer¬ 
cises he’s learning a few things that will 
181 



fHE MAKING OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


dt 


be valuable to him later on. It’s mighty 
important, it’s absolutely essential, that 
he gets on to the fact right now that the 
world wasn’t made for his amusement, 
and that mama and not he is the boss of 
the ranch. 

That little matter settled, you’ll find the 
rest of the way comparatively easy; but 
unless it is settled, and settled for keeps, 
the road to Dublin won’t be a circum¬ 
stance for rocks. Do you remember the 
old example of the horseshoe nail in your 
arithmetic, the one that shows the won¬ 
ders of arithmetical progression? Well, 
that’s just the way the difficulty of set¬ 
tling that question increases every day 
you postpone it. That’s why I lay so 
182 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




much stress on the importance of doing 
it now. I know he’s such a precious lit¬ 
tle cherub, so cute and cunning, and all 
that sort of thing. It’s mighty hard to 
deny him anything he wants, but you 
should keep before you all the time, my 
dear, not what he is but what he is to be. 

You know when a sculptor is making 
a model for a statue he has to have moist 
clay, and he has to keep it moist. Unless 
he does he can’t give it the form he de¬ 
sires. It’s just so with your baby. Un¬ 
less he is plastic, so to speak, you can 
never mold him to your will. Unless he 

V 

learns the lesson of obedience you can 
never give his character that form which 
is the essence of real manhood. The 

183 





T he makinq of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


making of a man is a big job, but if 
obedience is made the foundation it isn’t 
so very difficult. And yet, obedience 
mustn’t be supine submission. A child 
must be taught to obey because the com¬ 
mands are just and right, and when needs 
be he should be shown why they are just 
and right. His spirit is to be trained 
and developed, not crushed. I never had 
any patience with the old-time method of 
raising children, which was nothing less 
than tyranny. It was a whole lot better 
than the modern way of unbridled li¬ 
cense, but it wasn’t right. 

A child should be treated as a being 
endowed with reason and should be 
taught to do right because it is right, 
184 



T he making of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




not because a mother or a father com¬ 
mands it. That, of course, makes it nec¬ 
essary for him to know right from 
wrong, and you can’t put in too much 
time giving him that knowledge. Teach 
your boy to be truthful and honest and 
courteous, and show him why he should 
be so. Don’t make the mistake, however, 
of holding up the fear of punishment as 
the chief reason. A boy who does right 
because he is afraid to do wrong is in a 
fair way to become a coward, if he isn’t 
one already. On the contrary, show him 
that these virtues distinguish the real man 
from the imitation. A man may possess 
courage and backbone and physical 
strength and yet be no better than many 

i85 





T he MAKmg of a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 


four-legged brutes. Genuine manhood is 
a mental rather than a physical condition. 
Muscle is highly desirable, and I hope 
John William will have plenty of it, but 
don’t let him get the notion in his head 
that that is all he needs. A boy is natur¬ 
ally a good deal of a savage and has the 
savage’s admiration for strength. Lots 
of us older boys haven’t got very far away 
from primitive ideas in that particular, 
but all the same it’s a matter of mighty 
small importance in the making of man¬ 
hood compared with the attributes of the 
mind. 

These are just general principles, my 
dear. You can’t make any rules that will 
fit all cases and you hardly ever find two 
186 



T he making of a a 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 

children exactly alike in their dispositions. 
Methods of training must be adapted to 
each individual A slipper or a shingle 
judiciously applied to the right spot will 
work wonders in many cases, while it’s 
worse than useless in others. Study your 
boy as you never studied any lesson in 
your life, and mold his mind and his char¬ 
acter according to the material you find 
you have to work with, always keeping 
in mind the one definite aim, the making 
of a man. 

This is a serious subject, little girl, and 
I have treated it seriously, but if you go 
at it right, and begin at the commence¬ 
ment, you will find this training of a child 
pne of the greatest joys of life. There 
187 



'HE MAKINQ OF A 

SUCCESSFUL WIFE 




is nothing so beautiful as the gradual un¬ 
folding of the mind of a little one, and 
there is no task so noble and ennobling 
as that which gives proper direction to 
its development. But start now, honey, 
start now. Don’t put it off till next year. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Sneed. 


THE END. 


188 



THE MAKING Of A SUCCESSfUL HUSBAND 

A Companion Book to 
“The Making of a Successful Wife” 

By CASPER S. YOST 


“ ‘ The Making of a Successful Husband ’ tells what it is—a receipt 
for making a successful husband, a happy wife and a congenial, 
4 homey ’ home. In these letters are dealt with all the practical questions 
of spending and saving, the wife’s allowance and the wife’s relations. 
The problem of 4 keeping house or boarding ’ is also discussed. It is a 
well-known fact that advice given unasked is distasteful, but Mr. Yost 
has coated the pellets of advice with the sugar of wisdom and wit, 
thereby taking away all the bitterness. It is not only for the man who 
would be a successful husband, but for everybody. It should be read, 
if not for the wholesome truths it teaches, for the pleasure to be derived 
from the witty epigrams which abound.”— St. Louis Times. 

“There is much homely wisdom and eminent common sense in 
Casper S. Yost’s little volume, 4 The Making of a Successful Husband.’ 
A general flow of humor and vein of epigrammatic wit invest precept 
and argument with interest and vitality.”— The North American. 

44 It is brimful of wisdom which cannot be lost, no matter what the 
attitude of the reader. It is a common belief, perhaps, that the young 
man in search of a wife is an illogical being taking a plunge in the dark, 
and that there is nothing to do about him more than to permit him to 
take the plunge and trust to luck. This easy-going theory may not be 
all wrong, but Mr. Yost shows us that there is another phase of the 
problem. He puts himself in the position of a happily married man 
writing a series of letters to his son. First the son is merely engaged. 
Then he is on his honeymoon, and then he is seen confronting the 
problems that perplex the average young married man. The father is a 
sagacious, kindly, shrewd, broad-spirited fellow, and he has the good 
sense not to instruct, but to suggest. He writes to the young man 
without pompousness, almost without authority, but humorously and in 
a persuasive, politic manner.”— St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 

“ While very practical and full of common sense, great stress is laid 
upon the preservation of the sentimental side of marriage, which in this 
work-a-day world is sometimes too quickly lost sight of.” 

—Nashville American. 


l2mo. Cloth Bound, $1,00 

G. W. DILLINGHAM CO., Publishers, NEW YORK 




H 76 89 
















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